In a tower of marble, white and high,
Sat princess Iris, beneath the sky.
The kingdom sighed for her gentle grace,
For the silk and lettuce and her painted face.

They whispered of spinning and sitting still,
But Iris had iron and a restless will.
They thought she was dreaming of balls and rings
Of poetry books and delicate things.

But under her gown, a violet hue
Was scuffed of boots and a bruise or two.
She practised her grip on the window ledge,
with a heart a sharp as a dagger’s edge.

One moonlit night while the century slept
Into the shadows the princess stepped.
She didn’t wave ropes with her golden hair,
(that’s far too much brushing and quite unfair).

She ripped up the tapestries, thick and old
With a pocket knife hidden in a velvet fold.
She tied them tight with a sailor’s knot,
far from the lady the world had bought.

She kicked out of the slippers that pinched her toes,
And hiked up her skirt as her courage rose.
Through the narrow window, she vaulted wide,
To the jagged rocks on the mountain side.

She didn’t wait for a knight’s Huzza!
She swung down the wall like a falling star.
She skilled her vein with a briar’s grow,
And sprinted fast for the plains below.

With dirt on her chin and a grin so wide,
The girly girl took a thundering ride.
So if you ever find a tie – empty and tall,
With a trail of silk along the outer wall,
No Iris where the wild wind blows,
With mud on her boots and a story to show.