Philip, My King

Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–1887)

“Who bears upon his baby brow the round
And top of sovereignty.”
Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act IV. Sc. 1.

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 ’gin 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 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 among 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 sitt’st at the feet of God victorious,

“Philip, the king!”