ANNA BOLEYN.
On seeing the axe with which Anna Boleyn was beheaded, still preserved in the Tower of London.
Stern minister of fate severe,
Who, drunk with beauty's blood,
Defying time, dost linger here,
And frown with ruffian visage drear,
Like beacon on destruction's flood,—
Say!—when ambition's giddy dream
First lured thy victim's heart aside,
Why, like a serpent, didst thou hide,
'Mid clustering flowers, and robes of pride,
Thy warning gleam?
Hadst thou but once arisen in vision dread,
From glory's fearful cliff her startled step had fled.
Who, drunk with beauty's blood,
Defying time, dost linger here,
And frown with ruffian visage drear,
Like beacon on destruction's flood,—
Say!—when ambition's giddy dream
First lured thy victim's heart aside,
Why, like a serpent, didst thou hide,
'Mid clustering flowers, and robes of pride,
Thy warning gleam?
Hadst thou but once arisen in vision dread,
From glory's fearful cliff her startled step had fled.
Ah! little she reck'd, when St. Edward's crown
So heavily press'd her tresses fair,
That, with sleepless wrath, its thorns of care
Would rankle within her couch of down!
To the tyrant's bower,
In her beauty's power,
So heavily press'd her tresses fair,
That, with sleepless wrath, its thorns of care
Would rankle within her couch of down!
To the tyrant's bower,
In her beauty's power,
