Where Have All the Knights Gone?

or princesses for that matter

Where have all the knights gone
In mail chained or plated?
Why lies the sparring ground so still,
Drills and tournaments dated? 
How come the armory forge's gone out
With nothing to hammer or grind? 
Has the world no need of a champion,
Or marshal or warrior-kind? 

Where have all the dragons gone,
Those terrors of skies and field?
Where are the highwaymen robbers
Waiting en route concealed?
Where are the bears and the wolves
Threatening livestock and brood?
Has the naming and taming of earth
Left middle class America subdued?

Where are the king's lovely daughters,
The princesses with faces fair?
Where are their dowries and lands
That come when they marry an heir?
Whose sons will risk life and limb
Proving daughters are gracious and good?
Where are the children of queens
Raised to noble knighthood?

Could it be that the villains of night
See no threat in heirs turned beggars? 
Could it be that dragons in lairs
See our cash is held by our creditors?
And all the kingdom we own
Is mud and dust on this globe?
What inheritance have they to seize
When we put on no royal robes? 

Now knights overweight through consumption
Guard riches piled up everywhere.
And princesses dressed in earth-dust
Are absorbed in civilian affairs.
The dragons we once challenged fight
Go unseen and prey on us fools
For the kingdom we thought we’d rule
Lacks power behind programs and schools.

Don't preach another church sermon.
Don't blame the old how they teach.
But look for the Mother near stable
Flanked by asses and sheep.
She hasn’t a governing building,
Nor the child, earth-kingdom to rule.
But the outcasts and hungry come to them
And their treasures are eternal jewels.

Then there you'll find dragon and wolf
Poised to devour the young.
There you'll find knight and warrior
Fighting for God's Kingdom as one.
Yes, the training grounds are sparsely filled,
But He said He'd teach the workers few
How to tread on serpents and cobras
With power like legends of old born again new.

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To read similar poems, click the links below.