This coming Sunday, changing only "And twenty-five years later" to "And seven decades later", every church in the land should sing Sir John Betjeman's incomparable Jubilee Hymn:
In days of disillusion,
However low we've been,
To fire us and inspire us,
God gave to us our Queen.
For our Monarch and her people,
United yet and free,
Let the bells from ev'ry steeple
Ring out loud the jubilee.
She acceded, young and dutiful,
To a much-loved father's throne;
Serene and kind and beautiful,
She holds us as her own.
For our Monarch and her people, ...
And twenty-five years later,
So sure her reign has been
That our great events are greater
For the presence of our Queen.
For our Monarch and her people, ...
Hers the grace the Church has prayed for,
Ours the joy that she is here.
Let the bells do what they're made for!
Ring our thanks both loud and clear.
For our Monarch and her people, ...
From that look of dedication
In those eyes profoundly blue,
We know her coronation
As a sacrament and true.
For our Monarch and her people,
United yet and free,
Let the bells from ev'ry steeple
Ring out loud the jubilee.
Which is more moving, this or For a Royal Wedding?
ReplyDeleteReaders must decide for themselves:
Delete"Let's all in love and friendship hither come,
Whilst the shrill Treble calls to thundering Tom,
And since the bells are for modest recreation,
Let's rise and ring and fall to admiration."
Those lines are taken from a ringer's rhyme
Composed in Cornwall in the Georgian time;
From the high parish church of St. Endellion,
Loyal to the Monarch in the late Rebellion,
Loyal to King Charles the First and Charles the Second,
And through the Georges to our Prince of Wales,
A human, friendly line that never fails.
I'm glad that you are marrying at home,
Below Sir Christopher's embracing dome;
Four square on that his golden cross and ball
Complete our own Cathedral of St. Paul.
Blackbirds in City churchyards hail the dawn,
Charles and Diana, on your wedding morn.
Come College youths, release your twelve-voiced power
Concealed within the graceful belfry tower,
Till loud as breakers plinging up the shore,
The land is drowned in one melodious roar.
A dozen years ago I wrote these lines:
"You knelt a boy, you rose a man
And thus your lonelier life began."
The scene is changed, the outlook cleared,
The loneliness has disappeared.
And all of those assembled there
Are joyful in the love you share.