THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS ISSUED BY THE PRESS SECRETARY TO THE QUEEN
Professor Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate, has written a special poem to mark the life of HRH Princess Margaret. The poem, released on the day of Princess Margaret's funeral, celebrates the life of the Princess in sonnet form.
The Younger Sister
The luxuries, of course, and privilege -
The money, houses, holidays, the lot:
All these were real, and all these drove a wedge
Between your life and ours. And yet the thought
Of how no privilege on earth can keep
A life from suffering in love and loss -
This means we turn to you and see how deep
The current runs between yourself and us.
And now death spells it out again, and more,
As it becomes your final human act:
A daughter gone before her mother goes;
A younger sister heading on before;
A woman in possession of the fact
That love and duty speak two languages.
Reproduced here by kind permission of Professor Andrew Motion.
