Love and the Law

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(a story in trochaic tetrameter)

Even a Prince must bend his knee
to the lass who has won his heart.
“Please be my bride, stay by my side
forever - tell me we shall wed.”

“My love and affections are yours,
they have never been better fed
- you are surely pleasures master,
with your rough hands and softer lips.”

“Then let us petition the clerk,
we can be wed in a fortnight!”

Sometimes love takes dismaying turns.

There are standards, some are double.
The future princess must be chaste.

The clerk asked, “Are you a virgin?”

“Do you seek to entrap us, sir?”
The prince asked, his hand to dagger.

“We cannot hoodwink the law, sir.
It must be asked and answered.”

And so the clerk asked it again,
“Would you swear on your honor miss?”

“If I had a virgins honor,”
the possible, future princess said.

The high clerk sighed and sheathed his pen.

“Most honest and least virtuous
lady, the marriage cannot be.”

“So, then the law is strictly tied
to something lost in love’s first blush?”
She asked, with no show of dismay.

“My actions follow the law, miss.”
If the clerk sounded bored, he was.

The prince, however, was outraged.
and on the verge of a salvo.

The clerk feared a soliloquy.

To stall the coming storm, the clerk
said, “I believe you KNOW the King?”

“He’s my father!” The prince revealed,
to no one’s shock or great surprise.

“The King, the law - the law, the King?”
The clerk's finger turned like a wheel.

Somewhere deep in princes mind
a dim bulb lit. “To the Castle!”

The clerk smiled wryly at the lass,
who shrugged back. Love would find a way.

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