“Even should you fly to his arms, I’ll damn Opinion, and fetch you; treat as sham Your mutinous kicks, And whip you home. That’s the sort I am!” She whitened. “Enough . . . Since you disapprove I’ll yield in silence, and never move Till my last pulse ticks A footstep from the domestic groove.” “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 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. 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;