Coronation Day.
O thou that sea-walls sever From lands unwalled by seas!
Wilt thou endure forever, O Milton's England, these?
Thou that wast his Republic, Wilt thou clasp their knees?
These royalties rust-eaten, These worm-corroded lies That keep thy head storm-beaten, And sun-like strength of eyes From the open air and heaven Of intercepted skies!
-SWINBURNE.
VIVAT REX EDUARDUS! They crowned a king this day, and there has been great rejoicing and elaborate tomfoolery, and I am perplexed and saddened.I never saw anything to compare with the pageant, except Yankee circuses and Alhambra ballets; nor did I ever see anything so hopeless and so tragic.
To have enjoyed the Coronation procession, I should have come straight from America to the Hotel Cecil, and straight from the Hotel Cecil to a five-guinea seat among the washed.My mistake was in coming from the unwashed of the East End.There were not many who came from that quarter.The East End, as a whole, remained in the East End and got drunk.The Socialists, Democrats, and Republicans went off to the country for a breath of fresh air, quite unaffected by the fact that forty millions of people were taking to themselves a crowned and anointed ruler.Six thousand five hundred prelates, priests, statesmen, princes, and warriors beheld the crowning and anointing and the rest of us the pageant as it passed.
I saw it at Trafalgar Square, 'the most splendid site in Europe,'
and the very uttermost heart of the empire.There were many thousands of us, all checked and held in order by a superb display of armed power.The line of march was double-walled with soldiers.The base of the Nelson Column was triple-fringed with blue-jackets.
Eastward, at the entrance to the square, stood the Royal Marine Artillery.In the triangle of Pall Mall and Cockspur, the statue of George Ill was buttressed on either side by the Lancers and Hussars.
To the west were the red coats of the Royal Marines, and from the Union Club to the embouchure of Whitehall swept the glittering, massive curve of the 1st Life Guards- gigantic men mounted on gigantic charges, steel-breastplated, steel-helmeted, steel-caparisoned, a great war-sword of steel ready to the hand of the powers that be.