Simon Armitage, the poet laureate, has penned a heartfelt homage to the Queen as a “thank you” for her decades of service.
The poem Floral Tribute describes the monarch bearing the country in “thin hands… hands that can now rest, relieved of a century’s weight.”
The 18-line poem is a double acrostic, which means that the initial letter of every line in both stanzas spells Elizabeth.
It begins by detailing the arrival of a September evening – an allusion to the month in which the Queen died – and asserts that the ‘determined’ late afternoon cannot prevent dusk.
The poet then depicts a lily that illuminates the darkness and calls it a “thanksgiving symbol.”
The 1953 coronation bouquet of Queen Elizabeth II contained lily-of-the-valley, her favorite flower. Her childhood moniker was Lilibet, and the poem describes lily of the valley as “nearly a namesake.”
In 2020, when the Royal Family revealed their favorite flowers when the epidemic pushed the Chelsea Flower Show online, the Queen selected this flower.
Buckingham Palace stated that the flower had’special connections’ with the queen since her coronation, and it was also included in Kate Middleton’s wedding bouquet.
The woodland plant, which is frequently used to symbolize dependability, is planted on the grounds of Buckingham Palace.
In the poem, Mr. Armitage references the crowning of the Queen and her decades of service, stating, “A promise made and maintained for life – that was your gift.”
After the Covid pandemic pushed the Chelsea Flower Show online in 2020, the Queen chose the lily-of-the-valley as her favorite flower.
He says, “The nation has placed its entire self in your thin hands,/ Hands that can now rest, relieved of a century’s burden.”
The second stanza opens with a reference to the Queen’s death in Scotland: “It is evening. Rain on the dark lochs and mountains.
It praises her “restrained passion and strong grace” and compares her to a lily of the valley, stating, “Everything revolves around her bright petals and deep roots.”
It concludes that the Queen’s impact will endure beyond her lifetime, just as the lily’s brilliance “holds and glows beyond its life and bloom’s border.” Mr. Armitage, 59, has served as poet laureate since May 2019 and met the Queen annually when she hosted audiences for the recipient of her gold medal for poetry.
Queenhood is a 70-line poem he wrote earlier this year to commemorate her 70 years of service at the Platinum Jubilee. The poet, a former probation officer, also penned The Patriarchs, an elegy commemorating the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.
In an interview with The Times earlier this year, he stated that the Queen had “won him over” and that he believed the monarchy was necessary for the nation.