The Legend of Genevieve :: :: University of Virginia Library

Who, standing on this rural spot,
With groves above, and fields around,
Would, pausing, e'er indulge the thought,
That armies throng'd the lower ground;
Or image neighing steed, or fear
That trump or drum salute his ear;
Or think this leafy screen enfolded
A being of as tragic fate,
As lovely, and unfortunate,
As Nature ever moulded!

II

Traced like a map, the landscape lies
In cultured beauty stretching wide;
There Pentland's green acclivities;
There Ocean, with its azure tide;

There Arthur's Seat; and, gleaming through
Thy southern wing, Dunedin blue!
While, in the orient, Lammer's daughters,
A distant giant range, are seen,
North Berwick Law, with cone of green,
And Bass amid the waters.

III

Wrapt in the mantle of her woe,
Here agonized Mary stood,
And saw contending hosts below,
Opposing, meet in deadly feud;
With hilt to hilt, and hand to hand,
The children of one mother-land
For battle come. The banners flaunted
Amid Carberry's beechen grove;

For an account of this action, so fatal to the interests of the unfortunate Mary, the reader is referred to Robertson's History, vol. I., book iv., Whittaker's Mary Vindicated, vol. I., chap. 4, sect. 3; also to Goodall's Examination of the Letters said to be written by Mary to Bothwell.

And kinsmen, braving kinsmen, strove
Undaunting, and undaunted.

IV

Silent the Queen in sorrow stood,
When Bothwell, starting forward, said,
“The cause is mine—a nation's blood,
Go, tell yon chiefs, should not be shed;

Go, bid the bravest heart advance
In single fight, to measure lance
With me, who wait prepared to meet him!'—
“Fly!—Bothwell, fly!—it shall not be”—
She wept—she sobb'd—on bended knee
Fair Mary did entreat him.

V

“I go,” he sigh'd—“the war is mine,
A Nero could not injure thee;—
My lot on earth is seal'd, but thine
Shall long and bright and happy be!—
This last farewell—this struggle o'er,
We ne'er shall see each other more—
Now loose thy hold! poor broken-hearted—”
She faints—she falls.—Upon his roan
The bridle-reins in haste are thrown.—
The pilgrim hath departed.

VI

Know ye the tenor of his fate?—
A fugitive among his own;
Disguised—deserted—desolate—
A weed on Niagara thrown;

A Cain among the sons of men;
A pirate on the ocean; then,
A Scandinavian captive fetter'd,
To die amid the dungeon gloom:
If earthly chance, or heavenly doom
Is dark:—but so it matter'd.

VII

Daughter of Scotland! beautiful
Beyond what falls to human lot,
Thy breathing features render'd dull
The visions of a poet's thought;
Thy voice was music on the deep,
When winds are hush'd, and waves asleep;
In mould and mind by far excelling,
Or Cleopatra on the wave
Of Cydnus vanquishing the brave,
Or Troy's resplendent Helen!

VIII

Thy very sun in clouds arose,
Delightful flower of Holyrood!
Thy span was tempest-fraught, thy woes
Should make thee pitied by the good.

Poor Mary! an untimely tomb
Was thine, with prison hours of gloom,
A crown, and rebel crowds beneath thee,
A lofty fate—a lowly fall!
Thou wert a woman, and let all
Thy faults be buried with thee!