Co-written with Google Gemini AI, Microsoft CoPilot AI and Anthropic Claude AI.

A Lament for King Harald V

You carried a nation on your shoulders
Long stretched and furrowed
Sea gulls and birch trees your faithful companions

Through fjord winds and winter’s quiet frost,
A steady hand upon the helm,
Warm eyes that mirrored all we gained and lost,
A gentle anchor for a northern realm.

And still the hat bows softly with you,
a quiet sentinel in summer grass;
your breath meeting the fjord’s old hush,
a monarch woven from wind and steadfastness.

Now the birches bow in silver light, And the gulls cry out across the sound, What a king holds cannot be held tight — It returns to the people, like water to ground.

You knew this. Carried it without complaint. The weight of crowns is loneliness and love. No lament can make the leaving faint — Only gratitude, rising like the dove.

So rest now beneath the open sky,
where calm tides brush the northern shore;
the sails are stilled, the watch goes by,
yet what was given lives forevermore.

And when the northern stars wheel slow above,
their ancient fires tracing paths you knew,
they shine not for the crown, but for the love
you folded into every duty you drew.

So let the constellations bear your name,
not as ruler, but as keeper of the light;
a steady warmth no winter could ever tame,
still guiding us through the long, kind night.