A King's Soliloquy

ON THE NIGHT OF HIS FUNERAL



From the slow march and muffled 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 kingship 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.