Prince Beau, The Pillager Poem by Birgitta Abimbola Heikka

Prince Beau was rightly named by his father, ruler of Plunder,
for he was beautiful in every way with skin milky and face structured
like an adeptly-erected bridge
"Lazy but gentle of spirit, " said his subjects the Plunderers
To make him useful, his father sent him to far off equator to enlighten
the pygmies of the deep, dark forest
With a cross in one hand to bring Jesus to the untaught
and a gun in another in case they intended to stay untaught
he journeyed thousands of miles to his new empire.

A luscious forest where everything grew like the Garden of Eden
beheld Prince Beau on arrival, not a savage one as he had deemed
The sun, a huge glass that blinded his eyes, seeped into the darkness
lighting up the forest
Casually strolling by were families of elephants—which he had only glimpsed
in picture books in Plunder
The untaught pygmies, who were so dark, he thought they must bathe in black
dye, led Prince Beau to secret caves where he beheld massive amounts of gold,
diamonds and cooper
His father had sent him to a land inhabited by people uncivilized but overflowing with riches!

Many years passed when an adventurer and scientist, Dr. Clark, happened one day
on a land deep in the equator's heart where he saw tiny people with missing limbs
and elephants with missing tusks
Ashes of trees were everywhere instead of a forest, rich, as he had been informed
What had happened here?He pondered.

Prince Beau, "the lazy but gentle of spirit" had all the elephants slaughtered
and under the threat of shooting, made the pygmies scratch soil in caves
from dawn to dusk for gold, diamonds and cooper
A hand was chopped off here and a foot chopped off there for disobedience
In Plunder, a new language recently learned well by the savages, they narrated
Deeply moved was Dr. Clark by the piety of the uncultured pygmies
For they each had a copy of the Holy Book turning the pages with limbs' stubs
Jesus, the savages had accepted but Prince Beau, the devil
- for this is what he had turned out to be- they thought bore a likeness to Him.
(also published by author in About Cain and Abel)

Based on King Leopod's tyrannical rule of the African country of Congo once called Leopodville.