| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| Philip, My King |
| | | Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826–87) |
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| LOOK at me with thy large brown eyes, | |
| Philip, my king. | |
| Round whom the enshadowing purple lies | |
| Of babyhood’s royal dignities. | |
| Lay on my neck thy tiny hand | 5 |
| With love’s invisible sceptre laden; | |
| I am thine Esther to command | |
| Till thou shalt find a queen-handmaiden, | |
| Philip, my king. | |
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| Oh the day when thou goest a wooing, | 10 |
| Philip, my king. | |
| When some beautiful lips ’gin suing, | |
| And some gentle heart’s bars undoing | |
| Thou dost enter, love-crown’d, and there | |
| Sittest love-glorified. Rule kindly, | 15 |
| Tenderly, over thy kingdom fair, | |
| For we that love, ah! we love so blindly, | |
| Philip, my king. | |
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| Up from thy sweet mouth,—up to thy brow, | |
| Philip, my king. | 20 |
| The spirit that here lies sleeping now | |
| May rise like a giant and make men bow | |
| As to one heaven-chosen among his peers. | |
| My Saul, than thy brethren taller and fairer, | |
| Let me behold thee in future years! | 25 |
| Yet thy head needeth a circlet rarer, | |
| Philip, my king. | |
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| —A wreath not of gold, but palm. One day, | |
| Philip, my king. | |
| Thou too must tread, as we trod, a way | 30 |
| Thorny and cruel and cold and gray: | |
| Rebels within thee, and foes without, | |
| Will snatch at thy crown. But march on, glorious, | |
| Martyr, yet monarch! till angels shout, | |
| As thou sit’st at the feet of God victorious, | 35 |
| “Philip, the king!” | |
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