Lay Grouter, Ten Clenched Tight

The Princess delighted to read of herself

In pamphlet, and gossip, and papers

Of her exploits quite often the night just before

Whose details quite gave her the vapors

 

 

For company each morning she had many mirrors

Where she’d dream with the utmost affection

Of the love that she held for the love of her life

Simpering back through the power of reflection

 

 

Her beauty so lauded in each printed word

Her beauty she’d cry, was a curse

The most wondrous creation in all of the land

(So it ought, since it came from the purse)

 

 

At times on inspection she’d let out a cry

At a wrinkle (a flaw that was barred)

It would be taken away with a cry and a curse

To be placed far below under guard

Not a clock was allowed, nor a calendar hung

Without time there could never be rot

Each day was the same so that she remained so

Her birthday she had ordered shot

Her hair was a mop that she kept in a hat

Her stomach a small jar of good prunes

Her skin she kept stretched on a rack by the bed

Her breasts were inflated balloons

Her feet ever pointed were ever well heeled

Her lips were a poet’s cliché

Her hips had been made of a rather fine vase

Her bum was composed all of clay

Her youth had been famous for decades now past

All that time in this city, she reigning

A nip, and a tuck, and a big bloody saw

Of the Princess there was little remaining

Where once she had struggled in corset and wasp

For her beauty then ever near fainting

Yet the mirror assured her, she remained ever young

Even if the mirror, in truth, was a painting

 

 

The Princess whose beauty a fact set in law

Was a singer, a writer, a sleuth

(All things really done by uglier hack

For beauty could make its own truth)

 

 

So she sat and admired herself through the day

Knowing not one minute a doubter

Ignoring the sounds from under her bed

Where lurked our brave hero, our Grouter!

The young man whom so far, you may well recall

We have swooned to his adventurous deeds

In his quest for that prize that beats in his heart

Or his trousers, to see to his needs

‘I come,’ he declared. And he had, as they say

On the carpet, the rug and veneer

‘Sorry,’ he said as he wiped on the wig

‘Is the Beautiful Princess not here?’

‘I admire your wit,’ the Princess declared

‘I admire your youth, and your pluck!

‘Tell me your quest, your desire, in a word...’

‘Nah,’ said Grouter, ‘I’ll be all right.’

The rhyming disturbed he backed under the bed

Like a fawn to the tiger, in a shrub

He hid until alone he might safely emerge

And creep like a thief to the Club

Where the Angel, the Boffin and Vixen had gone

To throw shapes on the brightly lit floor

To pray long and loud at the temple of dance

Though his name they had left on the door