GUILIELMUS REX
by: Thomas Bailey Aldrich
(1836-1906)
 HE folk
who lived in Shakespeare's day
- And saw that gentle figure pass
- By London Bridge, his frequent way--
- They little knew what man he was.
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- The pointed beard, the courteous mien,
- The equal port to high and low,
- All this they saw or might have seen--
- But not the light behind the brow!
-
- The doublet's modest gray or brown,
- The slender sword-hilt's plain device,
- What sign had these for prince or clown?
- Few turned, or none, to scan him twice.
-
- Yet 't was the King of England's kings!
- The rest with all their pomps and trains
- Are mouldered, half-remembered things--
- 'T is he alone that lives and reigns!
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"Guilielmus Rex" is reprinted
from THE SISTERS' TRAGEDY WITH OTHER POEMS,LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1891. |
MORE POEMS BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |
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