A F Harrold

The Princess & The Frog (Called Jeremiah)

There once was a Princess,
A sensible girl,
Whose mother tried to marry her
Off to some Earl.

“Oh mommy dearest,”
The girl was heard to say,
“I don’t want to marry
Your Earl today,

I met him at a ball once
He didn’t dance well
And if you ask me to be honest
He had a funny smell.”

The Queen told her daughter
“Ah, but marry him you must
I’ve made a promise to his father
And I cannot break that trust.”

So the Princess told the Queen
“OK, I’ll marry him for you,”
But then she ran away
As Princesses sometimes do.

She ran quite a distance
Out of the town
And into the forest
Where she threw away her crown.

She built a little house
Out of twigs and stuff.
(She was good with her hands
And often played rough.)

And she settled down to live
In her clearing by the brook
And caught fish for her tea
Which she never ever cooked.

She made friends with some deer
And a badger and a rat
And an owl and a donkey
And a fairly wild cat

And life was very pleasant
And her mother never knew
Where her little Princess
Had run off to.

But the best friend of the Princess
Was a frog called Jeremiah
And they’d lie in the evening
Side by side by the fire

And talk about their day
And what they’d do tomorrow.
(Which was usually have lunch
And a little mud wallow.)

Jeremiah knew the best bits
Of the woods for playing games
And he knew all the animals’
Very secret names

And he’d hop and catch flies
On the tip of his tongue
And his breath smelt of insects
As he swallowed them down.

He was the best sort of friend
The Princess had ever known
He was funny and he listened
To her talking of her home,

Of the castle, of her mother,
Of the life she didn’t miss
And ‘cause he was a friend
She lent down and pecked a kiss

On the dome of the top
Of his warty froggy head.
At that instant thunder rolled
And the sky turned red

And the curtain on her window
Split itself in two
And she was very scared
(And you would have been too)

And so she reached for Jeremiah
And she grasped his hand
But it wasn’t green and clammy
And seemed stuck on a man

And he looked like a Prince
And he had a velvet cloak
And he had a little crown
And she hoped it was a joke

Because she didn’t want a Prince
There wasn’t room in her house
She could fit in a frog
Or maybe a mouse

But a Prince?

He went to open his mouth.
She put a finger to his lips.
She tried to think quickly.
He had his hands on his hips

And he looked at her quizzically
As if she was acting strange
He said, “It’s me, Jeremiah,
I’ve only undergone a change.”

She said, “I know, for the worse.”
And she didn’t speak again
Until she’d walked him to the station
And put him on a train

And sent him to her mother
Who would doubtless be pleased
To meet another Prince
Wafted home on the breeze

But the Princess was quite certain
That she didn’t need a Prince
She had world enough and laundry
Of her own she had to rinse

And she couldn’t spare the food
And she knew she couldn’t bear
To look into his eyes
And see the frog that once was there

And be reminded of the days
When she and Jeremiah
Would lie arm in arm
Side by side by the fire.

So the Prince is with her mother
Somewhere distant up the road
And the Princess now is flirting
With a very handsome toad.