Mary Queen of Scots

Landing at the Mouth of the Derwent, Workington

DEAR to the Loves and to the Graces vowed,

The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore;

And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore

Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed!

And like a star (that, from a heavy cloud

Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,

When a soft summer gale at evening parts

The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud)

She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian seer,

Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand,

With step prelusive to a long array

Of woes and degradations hand in hand,—

Weeping captivity and shuddering fear

Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!