"Gwenllian, the Last Princess of Wales" by Ricky Pittman, Second Place, 2016

Gwenllian, the Last Princess of Wales

by Ricky Pittman of Monroe, Louisiana

Second Place, 2016

Taken from her cradle

By bloody English hands,

After Longshanks killed her father

When he took his final stand.

Now a cradle in Snowdonia

Rocks empty in the night,

And a little girl is crying

From hunger and from fright. 

I hear a ghostly lullaby

In this castle’s lonely halls,

And whispers of a princess

Whom few can now recall.

Her mother died in childbirth

Now her father dead in war,

To a monastery banished

Held behind locked doors. 

In silent meditation,

Worn beads in her hand,

She passes lonely hours

An exile from her land. 

In this monastery lonely

Where stone walls are so cold,

A princess prays there weeping,

She’s 55 years old. 

She never learned her language,

She never knew her name

Never knew a lover’s kiss

Never knew who was to blame. 

Gwenllian, the last princess,
Wales story must be told,
Follow her sad footprints,
Across the bleeding snow.