Dinah Maria Craik (1826–1887)

“Who bears upon his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty.”

LOOK at me with thy large brown eyes,

Philip my king,

Round whom the enshadowing purple lies

Of babyhood’s royal dignities:

Lay on my neck thy tiny hand

With love’s invisible sceptre laden;

I am thine Esther to command

Till thou shalt find a queen-handmaiden,

Philip my king.

O the day when thou goest a wooing,

Philip my king!

When those beautiful lips are suing,

And some gentle heart’s bars undoing

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,—unto 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!”