The Englishman and Other Poems

Transcribed from the 1912 Gay and Hancock edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
GAY AND HANCOCK, LTD. 12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN LONDON 1912
( Written on the day of Queen Victoria’s funeral )
The Queen is taking a drive to-day , They have hung with purple the carriage-way , They have dressed with purple the royal track Where the Queen goes forth and never comes back .
Let no man labour as she goes by On her last appearance to mortal eye ; With heads uncovered let all men wait For the Queen to pass in her regal state . Army and Navy shall lead the way For that wonderful coach of the Queen’s to-day .
Kings and Princes and Lords of the land Shall ride behind her , a humble band ; And over the city and over the world Shall the Flags of all Nations be half-mast-furled , For the silent lady of royal birth Who is riding away from the Courts of earth , Riding away from the world’s unrest To a mystical goal , on a secret quest .
Though in royal splendour she drives through town , Her robes are simple , she wears no crown : And yet she wears one , for widowed no more , She is crowned with the love that has gone before , And crowned with the love she has left behind In the hidden depths of each mourner’s mind .
Bow low your heads—lift your hearts on high— The Queen in silence is driving by !
Born in the flesh, and bred in the bone, Some of us harbour still A New World pride: and we flaunt or hide The Spirit of Bunker Hill. We claim our place, as a separate race, Or a self-created clan; Till there comes a day when we like to say, ‘We are kin of the Englishman.’
For under the front that seems so cold, And the voice that is wont to storm, We are certain to find, a big, broad mind And a heart that is soft and warm. And he carries his woes in a lordly way, As only the great souls can: And it makes us glad when in truth we say, We are kin of the Englishman.’
He slams his door in the face of the world, If he thinks the world too bold. He will even curse; but he opens his purse To the poor, and the sick, and the old. He is slow in giving to woman the vote, And slow to put up her fan; But he gives her room in the hour of doom, And dies—like an Englishman.