Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/80

And he, who felt the assassin's steel,
    Though erst with sharper anguish tried
From rebel son and traitor chief;—
    Before my sight they seem to glide.

He too, at Flodden-field who died,
    The belt of iron round his breast,
Held his last frantic orgies here,
    And rushed to battle's dreamless rest.

And Margaret's son and Mary's sire,
    Methinks I see him, wrapped in gloom,
Glance coldly on the babe, whose birth
    Just marked the portal of his tomb:

"An heir to Scotia's throne, Oh king!
    A daughter fair!" the herald said;
No smile he gave, no hand he raised,
    They touched his forehead;—he was dead.

He, too, the anointing oil who bore
    Of Albion on his princely head,
Yet basely, near his palace-door,
    Upon the sable scaffold bled,

In youthful days, when skies were bright,
    And nought the coming doom betrayed,
The crown upon his temples placed
    In yonder chapel's sacred shade.