Two Poems on the Passing of the Queen

by Paul Martin Freeman (October 2022)

Life Guards, Edward Bawden, RA, 1953

The Nation’s Heart

The Nation’s heart has passed away,
A loving grandmother to all.
And now it’s for her son we pray
Whom Charles the Third we’ll learn to call.

But will he fill that vital space
Elizabeth has left behind?
For peerless was her poise and grace,
This pinnacle of womankind.

Waiting in Line

They wait in line to view the royal coffin;
The casket spells the end of all they’ve known.
And time, they somehow feel, will never soften
That awful sense that now they’re on their own.

No longer will her presence reassure them
That all is well however things appear.
The world, they fear, is changing fast before them,
And what she stood for soon will disappear.

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Paul Freeman is an art dealer in London. His first book of poems, A Chocolate Box Menagerie, will appear later this month published by New English Review Press.

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