A Celebratory Ode on the Abdication of King Charles III – by
Tony Harrison (1995)
[It really bothered me that this poem was nowhere available
on the internet, despite being around for 29 years. So here it is:]
It's not surprising that the Muse has
had to bypass Laureate Hughes
and chooses me to be the bard
to hymn the close of this charade,
and hymn the Crown's demise I will
with this black goose-feather quill
I've saved for ages just to write:
Goodbye! Good riddance, Divine Right!
and anything that still pretends
divinity shapes human ends.
No Fidei Defensor now can guard
the worn-out Church from knacker's yard.
First with its feather end I'll dust
the eyeballs of the Milton bust
I've kept as a constant inspiration
towards a now maturer nation, Milton,
whose Latin justified
to Europe Britain's regicide,
with his blind and marble eyes
sheds no tears for this demise.
We only weep we had to wait
so long to have an adult state.
Why has it taken all this while
desceptring 'this sceptred isle'?
Between Charles I and II
Britain had a chance she blew.
Britain blew her biggest chance
to be a grown-up girl like France
but history has cried FINIS
and drawn a line at King Charles III.
Britain's watched as waves have swept her
last King with his crown and sceptre
into the tides of change Canute
saw lapping at his well-licked boot.
Though later kings chose to ignore
the breakers crashing on the shore
that leave poor Charles's ermine sodden
with the momentum of the modern.
More democratic, more adult
with no mystique of monarch cult,
let's begin by hauling down
the Rs in names that mean the Crown,
the R from every acronym
that's lost its use along with him.
Remove that R that's everywhere!
First, you, my friend (Sir?) Richard Eyre
take that R from RNT
always a sore point with me
so I'm the first to shout hurrah
that the National's free to drop its R.
They claimed the added R would raise
much needed cash much more than plays.
'It gave us dignity abroad'
according to Chairman Rayne (now Lord!)
I beg to differ, au contraire,
we just seem backward everywhere.
All that bowing to the Royal Box
just makes us into laughing stocks.
From now on let our stage creation
be simply offered to the nation
and none of us need now be forced
to be so royally endorsed.
Now work should seem its own reward
to every would-be Sir or Lord
and all those former Sirs and Dames
will be content with
simple names
without a prefix or a suf-.
In a republic work's enough.
Hopefully the day is dawning
when Britons lose their taste for fawning
on Lords and Ladies, Dames and Knights
dubbed by bepurpled parasites
and will demand a Bill of Rights.
A UK with a prefix 'Former'
sends tiaras into trauma
but King-dom's nothing when the King
's been taken under history's wing.
It's probably just British luck
the acronym comes out as FUK!
Now finally we've cast aside
the monarch without regicide.
It's 'off with his crown' instead
of, as before, 'off with his head'!
And he's agreed all by himself
to put the crown on to the shelf
where it must for ever stay
except for V&A display.
If Britain goes back where she was
and Republicans all flee to Oz
and there's a new ode to be written
to welcome King Charles back to Britain
I rather fear the Royal Muse
will have to go to Laureate Hughes.
An 'Ode on Monarchy Restored'
could make a Laureate a Lord.
