From the slow march and muffled drum, <br />And crowds distrest, <br />And book and bell, at length I have come <br />To my full rest. <br /> <br /> <br />A ten years' rule beneath the sun <br />Is wound up here, <br />And what I have done, what left undone, <br />Figures out clear. <br /> <br /> <br />Yet in the estimate of such <br />It grieves me more <br />That I by some was loved so much <br />Than that I bore, <br /> <br /> <br />From others, judgment of that hue <br />Which over-hope <br />Breeds from a theoretic view <br />Of regal scope. <br /> <br /> <br />For kingly opportunities <br />Right many have sighed; <br />How best to bear its devilries <br />Those learn who have tried! <br /> <br /> <br />I have eaten the fat and drunk the sweet, <br />Lived the life out <br />From the first greeting glad drum-beat <br />To the last shout. <br /> <br /> <br />What pleasure earth affords to kings <br />I have enjoyed <br />Through its long vivid pulse-stirrings <br />Even till it cloyed. <br /> <br /> <br />What days of strain, what nights of stress <br />Can cark a throne, <br />Even one maintained in peacefulness, <br />I too have known. <br /> <br /> <br />And so, I think, could I step back <br />To life again, <br />I should prefer the average track <br />Of average men, <br /> <br /> <br />Since, as with them, what kingship would <br />It cannot do, <br />Nor to first thoughts however good <br />Hold itself true. <br /> <br /> <br />Something binds hard the royal hand, <br />As all that be, <br />And it is That has shaped, has planned <br />My acts and me.<br /><br />Thomas Hardy<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-king-s-soliloquy-on-the-night-of-his-funeral/
