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 "
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