Prince Nicholas and the Pauper
written by: Ken Gosse
’Twas a dark, stormy night ’fore the day of my birth,
while Mamá, cold and hungry, was wand’ring the Earth.
Her stockings hung loose, full of holes, worse for wear,
and she hoped some kind Saint would soon notice her there.
As she begged door to door, often told not to grouse
(my Papá died and left her without home or spouse),
she sought a warm place to deliver this elf;
still safe, tucked inside her, I’d soon show myself.
Her footsteps left prints on the new-fallen snow;
they showed where she’d been but told not where to go.
Her clothes were in tatters, she had but one blouse,
and not enough food to feed even a mouse.
She paused by an inn for she’d heard the old story:
ten minutes of fame became legend and glory.
The innkeeper offered his barn, “for a fee,”
so that wasn’t the place—not for her, not for me.
But obstacles never deterred her bright eye,
and her mind, like a hurricane, took to the sky.
She soon found a sleigh out behind an old shed
and a bag full of hay she fluffed into a bed.
And then, in a twinkling, before she turned ’round,
though dressed in no furs, I arrived with a bound!
But a wink of her eye and a nod of her head
soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
“His eyes, how they twinkle! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks glow like roses; cold nose like a cherry.
He has a broad face and a little round belly
so empty and cold that it shivers like jelly.”
She whispered these words while pursuing her duty;
to love and to nurture this new-foundling beauty.
No long winter’s nap—she must suckle this lad.
I’m sure that’s the best night that I’ve ever had.
But we couldn’t nestle all snug in warm beds—
no visions of sugar-plums danced in our heads.
Mamá in the sleigh held me close in a sack,
and at least for one night I had nothing to lack.
As the sun rises late on a cold winter’s day,
so Mamá, when she woke, quickly sprang from the sleigh,
but she paused, with her fingers alongside my face,
and she said, with a nod and a voice full of grace,
’ere resuming her search for relief from our plight,
“Happy birthday to us! What a wonderful night!”
***
There’s barely a trace of Nick’s story but these.
Part II, “Life’s a Humbug,” had caused such unease
that the editors of all the weekly gazettes
were harangued by their readers with outrageous threats.
Though we wait for the outcome of Nick’s life empory
(ne’er told in Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story”),
we fear, as the sergeant from Penzance would say:
“Well, it’s too late, now!”
Perhaps, someday, we may.
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