Queen Elizabeth Shares Tribute Poem on Anniversary of Prince Philip's Death
Queen Elizabeth turned to poetry to mark the first anniversary of her late husband Prince Philip's death.
This morning, the monarch shared a tribute poem written by the U.K.'s Poet Laureate Simon Armitage in honor of Prince Philip, who died of old age on April 9, 2021, at the age of 99. The poem, titled "The Patriarchs – An Elegy," was paired with a video montage with images of Philip's childhood photos and special moments in the couple's life, including their royal wedding and the arrival of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
"Remembering His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh on the first anniversary of his death," reads the video's caption. Other members of the royal family also shared the clip, including Prince William and Duchess Kate, and Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.
The tribute comes weeks after the queen attended a memorial service for the late Duke of Edinburgh, held at Westminster Abbey, where dozens of royals from around the world, 700 charities and organizations, and many close family members and friends celebrated the royal's life and legacy. The remembrance was a chance for the monarch to honor her late husband surrounded by friends and well-wishers, after COVID restrictions limited attendance at Philip's funeral last year.
The 45-minute ceremony included praise of the late royal's "gifts of character, for his humor and resilience, his fortitude and devotion to duty," as well as his "service as a consort, liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship to Her Majesty."
Read Armitage's poem in its entirety below:
The weather in the window this morning
is snow, unseasonal singular flakes,
a slow winter’s final shiver. On such an occasion
to presume to eulogise one man is to pipe up
for a whole generation - that crew whose survival
was always the stuff of minor miracle,
who came ashore in orange-crate coracles,
fought ingenious wars, finagled triumphs at sea
with flaming decoy boats, and side-stepped torpedoes.
Husbands to duty, they unrolled their plans
across billiard tables and vehicle bonnets, regrouped at breakfast. What their secrets were was everyone’s guess and nobody’s business. Great-grandfathers from birth, in time they became both inner core and outer case
in a family heirloom of nesting dolls.
Like evidence of early man their boot-prints stand in the hardened earth of rose-beds and borders.
They were sons of a zodiac out of sync
with the solar year, but turned their minds
to the day’s big science and heavy questions.
To study their hands at rest was to picture maps showing hachured valleys and indigo streams, schemes of old campaigns and reconnaissance missions.
Last of the great avuncular magicians
they kept their best tricks for the grand finale: Disproving Immortality and Disappearing Entirely.
The major oaks in the wood start tuning up and skies to come will deliver their tributes. But for now, a cold April’s closing moments parachute slowly home, so by mid-afternoon snow is recast as seed heads and thistledown.
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