One brief, feverish sleep she taketh
From the night’s long pain;
But the cruel morning breaketh,
And she wakes again.
Music is upon the air—
Cheerily the horns are ringing
Round the captive’s keep;
And the early lark is singing
While her sad eyes weep.
Every sound the wild winds bear
Only bring doubt—death—despair.
"Kenilworth Castle is one of the most magnificent piles of ruin in England. In the reign of the first Henry, it was private property, but its owner taking an unsuccessful part in the civil wars, it fell to the crown, and remained so till the time of Elizabeth, who bestowed it on her favourite Leicester. On the 9th of July, 1575, a banquet was given to Elizabeth, by its ambitious lord, which Langham, an officer of the Queen’s household, who was present at the time, has described minutely: ‘The queen approaching the first gate, a man of tall person, and stern countenance, with a club and keys, accosted her majesty in a rough speech, full of passion, in metre aptly made for the purpose—demanding the cause of all this din and noise, and riding about within the charge of his office. But on seeing the queen, as if pierced at the presence of a personage so evidently expressing heroical sovereignty, he fell down on his knees, humbly prays pardon for his ignorance, yields up his club and keys, proclaims open gates, and free passage to all:’—immediately the trumpeters on the gate-tower, six in number, each an eight foot high, with their silvery trumpets of a five foot long, sounded up a tune of welcome."—Vide Langham’s Account of the Festivities at Kenilworth.
