The Prince of Pompadoodle

For a change of pace, here’s a poem from the late great Walt Kelly, the creator of Pogo. I’ve included one of the accompanying illustrations.

Unlike some of the later political satires presented in his comic strip, this little parable wasn’t directed at any particular political figure.

It is simply a meditation on the inherent isolation faced by powerful people. It’s also a reminder that an over-preoccupation with one’s own security is a self-defeating strategy.


The Prince of Pompadoodle
     Lived behind a castle wall,
Behind a moat, behind a guard
     Of twenty soldiers tall.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
     Was the safest man alive.
Each day he wrote how long he’d lived
     And multiplied by five.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
     Would survive, he did decide,
Five times as long as he had been
     Alive before he died.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
     Called in the castle sage
For his advice in this pursuit
     Of long and fulsome age.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
     Heard in horror from this friend
That somewhere in the palace
     Was a cur who’d seek his end!

The Prince of Pompadoodle
     Scarce could credit a belief
His years might soon be sneaked away
     By some ungrateful thief.
- - - - - - - - -
The Prince of Pompadoodle
     Sent his every friend away
And sat alone, safe, locked alive,
     To count another day.

The Prince of Pompadoodle
     May hoard each empty hour,
But none can know; no word comes from
     The silent, stony tower.

           — Walt Kelly, from Pogo’s Sunday Punch