THE SOUL OF QUEEN ALEXANDRA
A SPIRIT-PICTURE
Have you seen the Queen?
Thousands of eager lips voiced this question,—thousands of eager eyes were turned towards the stately towers of Westminster, rising darkly outlined like fine bronze against the cold grey sky, on that bleak and bitter feast-day of St. Valentine, 1901, when Edward VII., King of Great Britain and Emperor of India, went in state to open his first Parliament. Thousands of loving and loyal hearts, still heavy with grief for the loss of Victoria the Good, so long the Mother of her people, grew warm with tenderness and devotion as the whispered name “Alexandra!” ran from mouth to mouth, and the old fiery chant, so gloriously sung by the last great Poet-Laureate of England, came back like a wave breaking on the shore of many memories:—
“Sea-King’s daughter from over the sea,
Alexandra!
Saxon, and Norman, and Dane are we,
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee,