Follow the Leader (I ask the Oracle a question)

So the PB called me again and made a pretty convincing case for coming home to see me in 4 weeks.  No more marriage, no more jealousy, no more roping me off like a calf at the rodeo.  We'll see, I said.  And then I asked the Oracle, the poetry muse, what to do, because I do have to see him to give back these Jeanine Payer rings.

The Oracle didn't let me down.

Says, it will be heavenly
To be set free,
Cries, heavenly the girl who disenchants
And the royal times, heavenly,
And I think it will be.

from “The Frog Prince” by Stevie Smith

But what's heavenly, the freedom, the disenchantment?  I needed to find the poem, which I didn't know.  It's definitely going in my long-long-desired Fairy Tale unit:

The Frog Prince, Stevie Smith

I am a frog
I live under a spell
I live at the bottom
Of a green well

And here I must wait
Until a maiden places me
On her royal pillow
And kisses me
In her father’s palace

The story is familiar
Everybody knows it well
But do other enchanted people feel as nervous
As I do? The stories do not tell,

As if they will be happier
When the changes come
As already they are fairly happy
In a frog’s doom?

I have been a frog now
For a hundred years
And in all this time
I have not shed many tears,

I am happy, I like the life,
Can swim for many a mile
(When I have hopped to the river)
And am for ever agile.

And the quietness,
Yes, I like to be quiet
I am habituated
To a quiet life,

But always when I think these thoughts
As I sit in my well
Another thought comes to me and says:
It is part of the spell

To be happy
To work up contentment
To make much of being a frog
To fear disenchantment

Says, It will be heavenly
To be se free,
Cries Heavenly the girl who disenchants
And the royal times, heavenly,
And I think it will be.

Come then, royal girl and royal times,
Come quickly,
I can be happy until you come
But I cannot be heavenly,
Only disenchanted people
Can be heavenly.

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