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 eyesWhich are as calm as suns that riseAlike, and bring an equal gainTo just and unjust. Like soft rainHis gentle kindliness, but deepAs waters, in which oceans keepTheir treasures. Silent, warm, and whiteAs mid-day is his love's great light;But in its faithful summer savesFor every smallest flower that wavesSuch shelter that it cannot dieNor droop, while love's fierce noons pass by.

This king, this royal, simple king,Whose kingliness I cannot sing,Speaks words which are decrees, becauseThey come as questions, not as laws.Himself devoutest worshipperAt Truth's great shrine, his least acts stirThe people's hearts, as when of oldThe High Priest, lifting veil of gold,Came from the ark's most sacred place,And only by his shining faceRevealed to them without that heHad seen the Godhead bodily.Men serve him; but while they obeyFeel 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 beyondAll names and shapes of numbered days,All accidents of human ways,And, superseding signs and shriftsOf all allegiances, liftsService to Freedom's regal planeBeyond 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 wildernessSets state for him. Tall pine-trees bend;Strange birds sing songs which never end.The sunset and the sunrise sweepBackward and forward swift, to keepFresh glory round his pathway. Then,Of sudden men discover, whenThey journey thither by his side,What pomp and splendor are suppliedBy 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, growSignificant, when to and froThe simple king, unrecognized,Unenvious, and unsurprised,Walks smilingly, and as he treadsUnconscious 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.