26 MARCH 1937, Page 22

HARDY ON CORONATIONS [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,

Mr. E. M. Forster's article on the coming Coronation may aptly recall to readers of Thomas Hardy (if that disowned Wessex precursor of the Shropshire Lad has now any " public "1 his poem on the Coronation of 1911.

The monarchs at rest ask what the noise above is :

" A sound of chisels, augers, planes and saws, Infringing all ecclesiastical laws ? "

And each one answers according to his fashion, for Mary, a scaffold, for Henry a weArling, Richard a catafalque.

" But here, alas, in darkness laid below, We'll wait and listen, and endure the show . . . Clamour dogs kingship ; afterwards not so f "

4 Barton Street, Westminster.