C L Dallat
Child Edward's Darkest Hour
When David the boy-king, (latterly known as Edward),
was told his lover, Morgana, could never be queen,
—for Picts with their carnyx had called up the hosts of Geneva
and Cantuar and Ebor had spoken, and Miles Espana
(reigning in Ireland) rescinded the unsworn oath—
he packed up his yorkie, banjolele and lavender spats,
parted with Albert his sib in the sign of the craft,
spake farewells to the ether and sailed into exile
knowing he could never return until knights of the garter
would carry his bier before God in the heart of his dukedom;
but still in the vales where he once, and but briefly, held sway
before he was banished to languish in isles-of-the-blest,
they remembered his saying that something would have to be done
and believed on the day he had favoured his mistress with panthers
he had gifted his people the man-killing sloughs by his keep.
So that when, close to daybreak, he reached the Iberian border
and proffered his princeship des Galles in his half-Eton French
they bethought it a slip for a scion of Angevin stock,
looked hard on the last of the Bourbon and wryly enjoined him
to pass into legend, his dreams and delusions intact.
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