Elizabeth

2021

Armada Portrait 1588, Unknown artist, Royal Museums Greenwich

This English Pallas, peerless in her age,

Famed in her court, beloved throughout her land,

Stands proud amidst her richest heritage:

America beneath her tranquil hand,

Her vessels favoured by her noble gaze,

The Spaniard’s double pillars in her wake,

The Crown befitting this her native grace,

Her men, who lived and died but for her sake.

But then, beyond the Queen, Elizabeth:

Admired for faded beauty, vanished youth,

Loved for the ignorance of love’s own breath;

You wept for Essex, knowing well the truth:

That you pronounced his godless reckoning;You, woman with the stomach of a king—!