Princess

I recall it was just the other day Featured in the daily for which we pay Your blown-up photo splashed across The front page for all to gloss Your background and your virtues extolled For your wedding bells were soon to toll With a king-in-waiting as the groom You would wilt or you would bloom For marriage makes or marriage breaks And happiness, it gives or takes. Demure and with dimpled smile With an innocent heart, free of guile The press was exuberant, so were we You were the most charming in the royal family. Welcomed all across the globe The royal couple widely roved Ambassadors of all things good Displaying virtues like royalty would You touched hearts wherever you went Concern and compassion were your strength. You were blessed in due course With two sons that God had chose Then differences with the prince surfaced And you lost face, where you once graced And while your marriage began to flounder Your man, the prince continued to blunder On the treacherous rocks of marital infidelity You were shattered – your happiness was the casualty. You decided to go your separate ways Those were also the wishes of the palace The trauma of separation was sheer hell The ways of royalty were beginning to tell. Now, hordes of newsmen invaded your privacy In your land and beyond, you became a refugee The air was also rife with rumours Of liaisons and friendships and misdemeanours Your saddest day though, was the divorce Of you, whose touch was like the kiss of a rose. And alone, sweet Princess, you forged along Your grace, in adversity, inspired many a song Of worthy causes, you were still a crusader And you remained ever, a loving mother. It is said, you had found love at last And the leech like lensmen went wild with thirst For photos which augment tabloid sales They chased you in cars and astride motorcycles. For you, a Parisian tunnel was the end of the road You didn’t reap in life, what you had sowed And while your life ebbed within the wreck The paparazzi zoomed in, to make hay off the break Your blood-spattered close-ups drove them to frenzy As you lay helpless, unattended and in agony. And later in the night, mercifully all was darkness The world woke to a tragedy caused by sheer madness