The Journal Wk. 21
The Mirror and the Light: Wreckage (II)
Bess says, ‘We thought it was Boleyn’s secrets they were keeping.’ She looks sobered. ‘De mortuis nil nisi bonum.’
The Mirror and the Light, 201
Secrets lie on secrets
Among the wreckage, birds trapped beneath
Songs and verses,
Promises and kisses –
The bird you sought has flown,
Fear not
The flock will always sing for you
And surely lead you to the nest —
Arcadia never lives but dies.
‘“Set me free,” Henry said. And so you did. He meant, free like a prince — not free like a beggar. You knocked down his palace of dreams and left him stark in the ruins. You showed him his wife was false, that his friendships were feigned….’
‘I gave the king what he asked for.’ He thinks, she agrees with Chapuys: she believes Henry will never forgive me for it.
The Mirror and the Light, 206
The king is free at last, yet you
And you alone
Have set him wandering in a maze of mirrors
Where each glass shows him true and false
And he must bear his own reflection –
What, then, of that man, yourself
Who sent him naked into light?
The Journal is a section where I post weekly poems responding to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy. Here’s last week’s edition:
