Former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, who was appointed to the position by the Queen in 2009, has written a poem about the late monarch’s death.
The poem, titled Daughter, has been released on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral.
Hundreds of dignitaries are due to attend the service at Westminster Abbey, with leaders from around the world among the 2,000-strong congregation.
Duffy’s work references the Queen’s coffin being carried by a hearse from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, and the lowering of Union flags around the country as a mark of respect.
It includes lines about the public coming out to pay tribute: “And now the villagers, silently raising/ their mobile phones./ Then babies held aloft in the towns, to one day/ be told they were there.”
Describing how the public’s grief over the Queen’s death brings out our own personal sorrows, Duffy writes: “How they craned to glimpse their lives again/ in her death; reminded/ of Time’s relentless removals, their own bereavements,/ as she passed.”
The poem also pays homage to the Queen mother, who died in 2002, with the words: “You slowed and arrived with her, her only daughter,/ and only her daughter.”
Read the poem, first published by The Guardian, in full here.
Follow the latest updates following the death of Queen Elizabeth II here
