Poems (Craik)/Philip my King

by Dinah Maria Craik

POEMS.

PHILIP MY KING.

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

OOK 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 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!"