You really capture the rise and fall here, the plucking tale of hope and spirits rising in the music, growing up and running free, guttering low to then claw their way back up, standing alone in ruin,and then in stirring defiance. You capture so much of the music, giving form to the notes through poetry, and you achieve a beautiful level of duality in this. Not only can I picture the poem playing out to the music, but I can picture it being pictured. I can picture a little girl throwing herself around to the music, acting out this poem as she listens, just as clearly as the little girl, growing up under her father’s watchful eye, choosing her own path, one that ultimately prepared her for what she returned to.
I really love the way you have been inspired by the music, and the strong connection between the verses and the progression of the music. The poem itself has a depth that is easy to miss. At a glance, it is another princess who tried to defy her father and everything went wrong for her, the lesson being do as you are told now young lady. But there is so much more. She makes a choice, that is not understood by her suitors, and those who come to her do not do so as equals, but on bended knee. It is a request made, which she rejects, it is not the typical fairytale defiance of snobbery or self importance but self discovery that motivates her. There is such a careful weighing in the connotations of the words in each verse, they carry so much more than their primary meaning, Each adjective sets a scene, whispering of more than it is.
I love how she starts out a daughter, the shadow of her father, she becomes a graceful princess, and i suspect you chose that phrase for its popular use and all the standard graceful twirling 14 year old princess at the ball images that go with it, she becomes a sole traveler by her own choice, then lost in a storm, she becomes nameless, faceless, just another body in the sea. Then in the end, returned, and knowing herself, she becomes not just a princess, but the princess - a king by birth.
RE: A King By Birth - Poetry Bounty