Carol Ann Duffy, former Poet Laureate wrote a poem called ‘Daughter’ to mark Queen Elizabeth II's funeral which is being held in London on Monday. Carol Ann Duffy, a poet and playwright, was appointed by Queen Elizabeth II as Britain's poet laureate in 2009.
Carol Ann Duffy is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. Duffy resigned from the position of Poet Laureate in 2019. Duffy was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly gay poet to hold the Poet Laureate position.
Here's the poem Duffy shared ahead of Queen Elizabeth's funeral:
"Your mother’s daughter, you set your face
to the road
that ran by the river; abaft you, the castle,
its aphasiac ballroom,
lowered flag. Stoic, your contour a arch on a coin,
you followed the hearse
through sorrow’s landscape- a farmer, stood
on a tractor,
lifting his tweed cap; a aggregation of anglers
shouldering their rods.
And now the villagers, silently raising
{{/usCountry}}And now the villagers, silently raising
{{/usCountry}}their adaptable phones.
Then babies captivated aloft in the towns, to one day
be informed they were there.
But you had your mother’s eyes, as a horse ran free
in a field;
a pheasant flared from a hedge
like a befuddled bouquet;
journeying on by a autumn of aberrant love.
How they craned to glimpse their lives again
in her death; reminded
of Time’s adamant removals, their own bereavements,
as she passed.
The boost of the high arch over a amaze of water;
a faculty of ascending
into anointing ablaze which attenuated into cloud.
Nine further apathetic grey mile to the Old Town; the aftermost mile
a aristocratic mile,
where they aggregate ten-deep as your mother showed you
what she had meant.
Nightfall and cloudburst abreast London. Even the motorways paused;
thousands of headlights in rain
as you adumbral her still; smatterings of applause
from verges and bridges.
Soon abundant they would appear to apperceive this had continued been
the Age of Grief;
that History was once advanced of them. The acme of ice melting
on the roof of the world.
Tonight, childhood’s palace; the iPhone torches bond back
to medieval flame.
So you slowed and accustomed with her, her alone daughter,
and alone her daughter."