Pomp and Circumstance, Coronation Incense

Grand the gestures, great, big, surging,

proudly, patriotic, urging

optimism lacking stigma,

quite devoid of all enigma.

Pomp and circumstance’s marches,

under marble of the arches;

were like inspiring incense, written

by Elgar for the king of Britain,

less holy than the incense offered,

with David’s psalms together, proffered

in Solomon’s great temple, when

produced by ancient priestly men.

A song with which Jews end the service of Shabbat morning, אֵין כֵּאלֹהֵינוּ, “There is none like our God,” ends problematically.

אֵין כֵּאלֹהֵינוּ אֵין כַּאדוֹנֵנוּ

אֵין כְּמַלְכֵּנוּ אֵין כְּמוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ

מִי כֵאלֹהֵינוּ מִי כַאדוֹנֵנוּ

מִי כְמַלְכֵּנוּ מִי כְמוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ

נוֹדֶה לֵאלֹהֵינוּ נוֹדֶה לַאדוֹנֵנוּ

נוֹדֶה לְמַלְכֵּנוּ נוֹדֶה לְמוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ

בָּרוּךְ אֱלֹהֵינוּ בָּרוּךְ אֲדוֹנֵנוּ

בָּרוּךְ מַלְכֵּנוּ בָּרוּךְ מוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ

אַתָּה הוּא אֱלֹהֵינוּ אַתָּה הוּא אֲדוֹנֵנוּ

אַתָּה הוּא מַלְכֵּנוּ אַתָּה הוּא מוֹשִׁיעֵנוּ

אַתָּה הוּא שֶׁהִקְטִירוּ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ

לְפָנֶיךָ אֶת קְטֹרֶת הַסַּמִּים

Translation:

There is none like our God: none like our Lord. There is none like our King: none like our Savior.

Who is like our God: who is like our Lord? Who is like our King: who is like our Savior?

We will give thanks unto our God: we will give thanks unto our Lord. We will give thanks unto our King: we will give thanks unto our Savior.

Blessed be our God: blessed be our Lord. Blessed be our King: blessed be our Savior.

Thou art our God: thou art our Lord. Thou art our King: thou art our Savior.

Thou art the one before whom our ancestors made the fragrant offering of incense.

The last line of this song, “Thou art the one before whom our ancestors made the fragrant offering of incense,” appears to be anticlimactic, after praise of God as King, Savior and Lord. The apparent anticlimax implies that the fact that our ancestors used to offer incense to God, is greater than any of His titles.

In “Many in U.K. Greet King Charles’s Coronation With a ‘Take It or Leave It’ Shrug,” NYT, 4/30/23, Mark Landler writes:

When King Charles III is crowned on Saturday, he will undergo a ritual so rare in modern British history that it last occurred 70 years ago, roughly the wait between sightings of Halley’s comet. And yet the coronation has yet to capture the imagination of a Britain preoccupied by other concerns.

Images of the new king — in chocolate, in Legos and in wax — are popping up in bakeries, toy stores and at Madame Tussauds wax museum. Ancient relics of coronation, like the Scottish stone of destiny, are being delivered to Westminster Abbey for the ceremony. Charles and his queen consort, Camilla, are rehearsing every step of the service in a specially staged room at Buckingham Palace.

But in a recent poll of 3,070 adults in Britain by the market research firm YouGov, 64 percent of respondents said they had little or no interest in the coronation. Only a third said they were strongly or fairly interested in it. Among those aged 18 to 24, the number voicing little or no interest rose to 75 percent.

“Love for the royal family has sort of declined,” said Jason Abdalla, 24, an information technology worker outside a pub last Friday in the exclusive Mayfair neighborhood of London. “It feels like appreciating the monarchy is an older, more mature thing. I mean, my parents are into it. They love the royal family. It’s ‘take it or leave it,’ for me.”

Mark Landler’s report implies that in anticipation of King Charles III’s  coronation in Westminster Abbey, his Anglican temple, the new British monarch is not being offered  praise of value comparable to that of the incense formerly offered to God  by ancient priestly ancestors of the Jews in His temple, in a Jerusalem which,  since the time that King David purchased the granary of Araunah (2 Samuel 24:18-25), has always been in Israel and not in William Blake’s “England’s mountains green.”