Poems (Jackson)/The Simple King

by Helen Hunt Jackson

THE SIMPLE KING.

HE king, the royal, simple king,
Whom in bold lovingness I sing,
Will not be buried when he dies,
As kings are buried. Where he lies,
No regal monument will show;
No worldly pilgrim-feet will go;
No heraldry, with blazoned sign,
Will keep the record of his line.
No man will know his kingdom's bound;
No man his subjects' grief will sound.
His crown will not lie low with him;
His crown will never melt nor dim.
This king, this royal, simple king,
Whose kingliness I kneel to sing,
Looks on all other men with eyes
Which are as calm as suns that rise
Alike, and bring an equal gain
To just and unjust. Like soft rain
His gentle kindliness, but deep
As waters, in which oceans keep
Their treasures. Silent, warm, and white
As mid-day is his love's great light;
But in its faithful summer saves
For every smallest flower that waves
Such shelter that it cannot die
Nor droop, while love's fierce noons pass by.

This king, this royal, simple king,
Whose kingliness I cannot sing,
Speaks words which are decrees, because
They come as questions, not as laws.
Himself devoutest worshipper
At Truth's great shrine, his least acts stir
The people's hearts, as when of old
The High Priest, lifting veil of gold,
Came from the ark's most sacred place,
And only by his shining face
Revealed to them without that he
Had seen the Godhead bodily.
Men serve him; but while they obey
Feel no oppression in the sway.
His royal hand is burdened too;
No load of theirs to him is new;
No sting or stigma in a bond
To him whose vision looks beyond
All names and shapes of numbered days,
All accidents of human ways,
And, superseding signs and shrifts
Of all allegiances, lifts
Service to Freedom's regal plane
Beyond compulsion or disdain.

This king, this royal, simple king,
Whose kingliness I love and sing,
Has not much silver or much gold:
Told as kings' treasuries are told,
Beggar's estate he must confess.
But all the lavish wilderness
Sets state for him. Tall pine-trees bend;
Strange birds sing songs which never end.
The sunset and the sunrise sweep
Backward and forward swift, to keep
Fresh glory round his pathway. Then,
Of sudden men discover, when
They journey thither by his side,
What pomp and splendor are supplied
By Nature's smallest, subtlest thing,
To hail and crown the simple king.
Yea! and the dull and stony street,
And walls within which rich men meet,
Cities, and all they compass, grow
Significant, when to and fro
The simple king, unrecognized,
Unenvious, and unsurprised,
Walks smilingly, and as he treads
Unconscious benediction spreads.
Ah! king, thou royal, simple king!
Not as by any grave I sing;
Neither by any present throne;
King crowned to-day, king who hast gone,
In kingliness one and the same!
The house runs not by race or name;
No day but sees, no land but knows;
The kingdom lasts, the kingdom grows;
God holds earth dearer and more dear,
God's sons come nearer and more near.