Since his appointment, in 1999, [Andrew Motion, Britain's poet laureate] has come up with royal-themed poems, praising Queen Elizabeth for "fifty years of steadiness through change," saying of Princess Margaret that she died knowing that "love and duty speak two languages," and writing, on the occasion of Prince William's 21st birthday, that:It's a threshold, a gateway
A landmark birthday;
It's a turning of the page,
A coming of age.In the past, royal-themed poems have rarely been considered a laureate's best work.
By article's end, Mr. Motion's work has been put to death by that nastiest of Brit epithets: "twaddle." Smashing.
