Address To The Queen, June 20th, 1887

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Title:     Address To The Queen, June 20th, 1887
Author: Bill o'th' Hoylus End [More Titles by Bill o'th' Hoylus End]

To the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty.

Most Gracious Sovereign Lady, Victoria Alexandra Guelph, Queen of the hearts of her people throughout all civilisation, one of your Majesty's loyal and faithful subjects desires most respectfully to approach your Majesty to congratulate you upon the completion of the fiftieth year of your reign. In the same year of your Majesty's coronation, in a wild part of old Yorkshire, where it is said the wind never blew nor the cock ever crew, was your Most Gracious Majesty's humble servant born; and at the very hour that your Majest ascended the Throne, a kind, good Yorkshire mother was rocking her baby in an old oak cradle, while the father was treading the treadles and picking the shuttle of his old hand-loom to the tune of "Britons never shall be slaves"; and I am proud to convey to your Majesty that the child in the old oak cradle was no less a person than your Majesty's humble and obedient servant, Bill o'th' Hoylus End, Poet and Philosopher to the plebians of Keighley, and who now rejoices in the fiftieth year of your Majesty's reign that he has been blessed with good health during that long period, having had at no time occasion to call in a physician. John Barleycorn has been my medical adviser, and when I begin to review the fifty years of your most illustrious reign, from my birth, I feel grateful indeed, for great and mighty men and nations have risen and fallen; but I am proud to think that your Most Gracious Majesty and your humble servant have weathered the storm, and I also can assure your Majesty that the lukewarm loyalty of the upper ten is not a sample of people here, for during the latter half of your Majesty's reign up to now prosperity has shone upon the once crooked, old, mis-shapen town, for wealth has been accumulated to the tune of millions, which I am sorry to inform your Majesty is in the hands of those who mean to keep it. One portion of your Majesty's lukewarm loyal subjects have the advancement of art and science so much on the brain that it is feared they will go stark mad. I have also much pleasure in informing your gracious Majesty that His Grace the Duke of Devonshire has presented the people of Keighley with a plot of ground to be called the Devonshire Park, which will be opened on the occasion of your Majesty's Jubilee; also that Henry Isaac Butterfield, Esquire, of bonny Cliffe Castle, has erected a noble-looking structure, to be called the Jubilee Tower, which will be opened on the day of your Majesty's Grand Jubilee, to commemorate your Majesty's glorious reign. This gentleman is a native of Keighley, and fairly entitled to be knighted by your gracious Majesty, seeing that he has done more to beautify the town than all the rest. It has also been given out that the town has to be honoured by a royal visit from your Majesty's grandson, Prince George. But pray take a fool's advice, your Majesty, and don't let him come unless he is able to pay his own expenses; for I can assure His Royal Highness that this is the city of number oneism. Yet with the exception of parting with the bawbees, I dare be sworn that your Majesty's subjects in Keighley are the grand and genuine men of the shire, take them in art and science, flood or field.

I sincerely hope that your Most Gracious Majesty will excuse the blunt and out-spoken Bard, who will ever remain your Majesty's most humble and obedient servant,--BILL O'TH' HOYLUS END.

P.S.--I beg your Majesty's most humble pardon, for since I addressed your most gracious Majesty a note has come to me stating that the Brewers, Bakers, Shoemakers, and Tailors, have subscribed and bought a splendid Ox, which will be roasted and served to the poor on the occasion of the celebration of your most gracious Majesty's Jubilee.

Then Hail to England's Gracious Queen!
'Tis now proclaimed afar,
The Jubilee of our Gracious Queen,
The Empire's Guiding Star.
For fifty years she's been to us
A Monarch and a Mother;
And looks her subjects in the face
As Sister or a Brother.

Then here's a health to England's Queen
Whom Jove to us hath given;
A better Monarch ne'er has been
Beneath His starry heaven.
There is no man of any clan,
O'er any land or sea,
But what will sing "God bless our Queen"
On her grand Jubilee.

The world looks on Old England's Queen
In danger for protection;
Nor never yet hath England failed
To make her grand correction.
"Fair play," she cries, no one shall harm
A child beneath my realm;
I'm Captain of Great Britain's barque
And standing at the helm.

Had England trusted wicked men,
This day where had she been?
But lo! she had a Guiding Star,
'Twas our dear Mother Queen.
There is no foe, where'er you go
This day, I vow, could hate her;
She's a blessing to her nation,
And a terror to a traitor.

As she has been, long may she reign,
The Grand Old Queen of Britain;
In letters of bright gold her name
Henceforward should be written.
All nations 'neath the stars above,
And canopy of heaven,
Rejoice to see her Jubilee
In Eighteen Eighty-seven.

[The end]
Bill o\'th\' Hoylus End's poem: Address To The Queen, June 20th, 1887

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