Satires of Circumstance Part 16

"Then swear it," he said, "and your king uncrown."

He drew her forth in her long white gown, And she knelt and swore.

"Good. Now you may go and again lie down

"Since you've played these pranks and given no sign, You shall crave this man of yours; pine and pine With sighings sore, 'Till I've starved your love for him; nailed you mine.

"I'm a practical man, and want no tears; You've made a fool of me, it appears; That you don't again Is a lesson I'll teach you in future years."

She answered not, but lay listlessly With her dark dry eyes on the coppery sea, That now and then Flung its lazy flounce at the neighbouring quay.

1910.

A KING'S SOLILOQUY ON THE NIGHT OF HIS FUNERAL

From the slow march and m.u.f.fled drum And crowds distrest, And book and bell, at length I have come To my full rest.

A ten years' rule beneath the sun Is wound up here, And what I have done, what left undone, Figures out clear.

Yet in the estimate of such It grieves me more That I by some was loved so much Than that I bore,

From others, judgment of that hue Which over-hope Breeds from a theoretic view Of regal scope.

For kingly opportunities Right many have sighed; How best to bear its devilries Those learn who have tried!

I have eaten the fat and drunk the sweet, Lived the life out From the first greeting glad drum-beat To the last shout.

What pleasure earth affords to kings I have enjoyed Through its long vivid pulse-stirrings Even till it cloyed.

What days of drudgery, nights of stress Can cark a throne, Even one maintained in peacefulness, I too have known.

And so, I think, could I step back To life again, I should prefer the average track Of average men,

Since, as with them, what kings.h.i.+p would It cannot do, Nor to first thoughts however good Hold itself true.

Something binds hard the royal hand, As all that be, And it is That has shaped, has planned My acts and me.

May 1910.

THE CORONATION

At Westminster, hid from the light of day, Many who once had shone as monarchs lay.

Edward the Pious, and two Edwards more, The second Richard, Henrys three or four;

That is to say, those who were called the Third, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth (the much self-widowered),

And James the Scot, and near him Charles the Second, And, too, the second George could there be reckoned.

Of women, Mary and Queen Elizabeth, And Anne, all silent in a musing death;

And William's Mary, and Mary, Queen of Scots, And consort-queens whose names oblivion blots;

And several more whose chronicle one sees Adorning ancient royal pedigrees.

- Now, as they drowsed on, freed from Life's old thrall, And heedless, save of things exceptional,

Said one: "What means this throbbing thudding sound That reaches to us here from overground;

"A sound of chisels, augers, planes, and saws, Infringing all ecclesiastic laws?

"And these tons-weight of timber on us pressed, Unfelt here since we entered into rest?

"Surely, at least to us, being corpses royal, A meet repose is owing by the loyal?"

"--Perhaps a scaffold!" Mary Stuart sighed, "If such still be. It was that way I died."

"--Ods! Far more like," said he the many-wived, "That for a wedding 'tis this work's contrived.

"Ha-ha! I never would bow down to Rimmon, But I had a rare time with those six women!"

"Not all at once?" gasped he who loved confession.

"Nay, nay!" said Hal. "That would have been transgression."

"--They build a catafalque here, black and tall, Perhaps," mused Richard, "for some funeral?"

And Anne chimed in: "Ah, yes: it maybe so!"

"Nay!" squeaked Eliza. "Little you seem to know -

"Clearly 'tis for some crowning here in state, As they crowned us at our long bygone date;

"Though we'd no such a power of carpentry, But let the ancient architecture be;

"If I were up there where the parsons sit, In one of my gold robes, I'd see to it!"

"But you are not," Charles chuckled. "You are here, And never will know the sun again, my dear!"

"Yea," whispered those whom no one had addressed; "With slow, sad march, amid a folk distressed, We were brought here, to take our dusty rest.

"And here, alas, in darkness laid below, We'll wait and listen, and endure the show . . .

Clamour dogs kings.h.i.+p; afterwards not so!"

1911.