Verses On Marie Antoinette.[85]

Behold where Gallia’s captive queen, With steady eye and look serene, In life’s last awful—awful scene, Slow leaves her sad captivity.

Hark! the shrill horn that rends the sky Bespeaks thy ready murder nigh, The long parade of death I spy, And leave my lone captivity.

Farewell, ye mansions of despair, Scenes of my sad sequestered care. The balm of bleeding war is near. Adieu, my lone captivity.

To purer mansions in the sky, Fair Hope directs my grief-worn eye, Where sorrow’s child no more shall sigh Amid her lone captivity.

Adieu, ye babes whose infant bloom Beneath oppression’s lawless doom, Pines in the solitary gloom Of undeserved captivity.

O Power benign that rul’st on high, Cast down, cast down a pitying eye; Shed consolation from the sky, To soothe their sad captivity.

Now virtue’s sure reward to prove, I seek empyreal realms above, To meet my long-departed love; Adieu my lone captivity.

These lines were published in a leading Glasgow newspaper in 1792.

DIRGE OF WALLACE.

They lighted the tapers at dead of night, And chanted their holiest hymn, But her brow and her bosom were damp with affright, Her eye was all sleepless and dim.

And the lady of Elderslie wept for her lord, When a deathwatch beat in her lonely room, When her curtain had shook of its own accord, And the raven had flapped at her window board, To tell of her warrior’s doom.

Now sing the death-song and loudly pray For the soul of my knight so dear, And call me a widow this wretched day, Since the warning of God is here.

For a nightmare rides on my strangled sleep— The lord of my bosom is doomed to die; His valorous heart they have wounded deep, And the blood-red tears shall his country weep, For Wallace of Elderslie.

Yet knew not his country that ominous hour, Ere the loud matin bell was rung, That a trumpet of death on an English tower Had the dirge of her champion sung.

When his dungeon light looked dim and red On the high-born blood of a martyr slain, No anthem was sung at his holy death-bed; No weeping was there when his bosom bled, And his heart was rent in twain.

Oh! it was not thus when his ashen spear Was true to that knight forlorn, And hosts of a thousand were scattered like deer, At the sound of the hunter’s horn!

When he strode o’er the wreck of each well-fought field, With the yellow-haired chiefs of his native land; For his lance was not shivered on helmet or shield, And the sword that seemed fit for archangel to wield, Was light in his terrible hand.

But bleeding and bound though “the Wallace wight,” For his much-loved country die, The bugle ne’er sung to a braver knight Than Wallace of Elderslie.

But the day of his glory shall never depart, His head unentombed shall with glory be palmed, From its blood-streaming altar his spirit shall start; Though the raven has fed on his mouldering heart— A nobler was never embalmed.

JEMIMA, ROSE, AND ELEANORE; THREE CELEBRATED SCOTTISH BEAUTIES.

Adieu! Romance’s heroines— Give me the nymphs who this good hour May charm me, not in Fiction’s scenes, But teach me Beauty’s living power. My harp that has been mute too long Shall sleep at Beauty’s name no more, So but your smiles reward my song— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.

In whose benignant eyes are beaming The rays of purity and truth; Such as we fancy woman’s seeming In the creation’s golden youth. The more I look upon thy grace, Rosina, I could look the more; But for Jemima’s witching face, And the sweet smile of Eleanore.

Had I been Lawrence, kings had wanted Their portraits, till I painted yours; And these had future hearts enchanted, When this poor verse no more endures. I would have left the Congress faces, A dull-eyed diplomatic corps, Till I had grouped you as the Graces— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.

The Catholic bids fair saints befriend him, Your poet’s heart is Catholic too; His rosary shall be flowers ye send him, His saints’ days when he visits you. And my sere laurels for my duty, Miraculous at your touch would rise; Could I give verse one trait of beauty Like that which glads me from your eyes.

Unsealed by you these lips have spoken, Disused to song for many a day, Ye’ve tuned a harp whose strings were broken, And warmed a heart of callous clay; So when my fancy next refuses To twine for you a garland more, Come back again and be my Muses— Jemima, Rose, and Eleanore.