We Serve Our Princess Catherine - poem

 Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

 

We Serve Our Princess Catherine

 

 

“We be the King’s men”

 

– Thomas Hardy and others

 

 

We are the King’s people

 

After the Order of Arthur and Carodoc

Of Athelstan and Edward, Flan Sinna

Kenneth McAlpine, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn

And all crown-bearers among our ancient isles

 

We are the Queen’s people

 

And because we are the Queen’s people

We know that every daughter of our isles is a Princess

And every woman of our isles a Queen

To whom we pledge our loyalty and faith

 

We are the Prince’s people

 

We serve His Royal Highness without reserve –

But perhaps we love our Princess of Wales more

Monarchy can easily be ‘debunked;' but watch the faces, mark the accents of the debunkers. These are the men whose tap-root in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire equality, they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

 

-C.S. Lewis, “Present Concerns,” 1948