Page:Poems Craik.djvu/20

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2
PHILIP MY KING.
Thou dost enter, love-crowned, and there
Sittest love-glorified. Rule kindly,
Tenderly, over thy kingdom fair,
For we that love, ah! we love so blindly,
  Philip my king.

Up from thy sweet mouth,—up to thy brow,
  Philip my king!
The spirit that there lies sleeping now
May rise like a giant and make men bow
As to one heaven-chosen amongst his peers:
My Saul, than thy brethren taller and fairer
Let me behold thee in future years;—
Yet thy head needeth a circlet rarer,
  Philip my king.

—A wreath not of gold, but palm. One day,
  Philip my king,
Thou too must tread, as we trod, a way
Thorny and cruel and cold and gray:
Rebels within thee and foes without,
Will snatch at thy crown. But march on, glorious,
Martyr, yet monarch: till angels shout
As thou sit'st at the feet of God victorious,
  "Philip the king!"