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Home  »  English Poetry III  »  715. The King’s Tragedy

English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

715. The King’s Tragedy

James I of Scots.—20th February, 1437

I CATHERINE am a Douglas born,

A name to all Scots dear;

And Kate Barlass they’ve called me now

Through many a waning year.

This old arm’s withered now. ’Twas once

Most deft ’mong maidens all

To rein the steed, to wing the shaft,

To smite the palm-play ball.

In hall adown the close-linked dance

It has shone most white and fair;

It has been the rest for a true lord’s head,

And many a sweet babe’s nursing-bed,

And the bar to a King’s chambère.

Aye, lasses, draw round Kate Barlass,

And hark with bated breath

How good King James, King Robert’s son,

Was foully done to death.

Through all the days of his gallant youth

The princely James was pent,

By his friends at first and then by his foes,

In long imprisonment.

For the elder Prince, the kingdom’s heir,

By treason’s murderous brood

Was slain; and the father quaked for the child

With the royal mortal blood.

I’ the Bass Rock fort, by his father’s care,

Was his childhood’s life assured;

And Henry the subtle Bolingbroke,

Proud England’s King, ’neath the southron yoke

His youth for long years immured.

Yet in all things meet for a kingly man

Himself did he approve;

And the nightingale through his prison-wall

Taught him both lore and love.

For once, when the bird’s song drew him close

To the opened window-pane,

In her bowers beneath a lady stood,

A light of life to his sorrowful mood,

Like a lily amid the rain.

And for her sake, to the sweet bird’s note,

He framed a sweeter Song,

More sweet than ever a poet’s heart

Gave yet to the English tongue.

She was a lady of royal blood;

And when, past sorrow and teen,

He stood where still through his crownless years

His Scottish realm had been,

At Scone were the happy lovers crowned,

A heart-wed King and Queen.

But the bird may fall from the bough of youth,

And song be turned to moan,

And Love’s storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate,

When the tempest-waves of a troubled State

Are beating against a throne.

Yet well they loved; and the god of Love,

Whom well the King had sung,

Might find on the earth no truer hearts

His lowliest swains among.

From the days when first she rode abroad

With Scottish maids in her train,

I Catherine Douglas won the trust

Of my mistress, sweet Queen Jane.

And oft she sighed, “To be born a King!”

And oft along the way

When she saw the homely lovers pass

She has said, “Alack the day!”

Years waned,—the loving and toiling years:

Till England’s wrong renewed

Drove James, by outrage cast on his crown,

To the open field of feud.

’Twas when the King and his host were met

At the leaguer of Roxbro’ hold,

The Queen o’ the sudden sought his camp

With a tale of dread to be told.

And she showed him a secret letter writ

That spoke of treasonous strife,

And how a band of his noblest lords

Were sworn to take his life.

“And it may be here or it may be there,

In the camp or the court,” she said:

“But for my sake come to your people’s arms

And guard your royal head.”

Quoth he, “’Tis the fifteenth day of the siege,

And the castle’s nigh to yield.”

“O face your foes on your throne,” she cried,

“And show the power you wield;

And under your Scottish people’s love

You shall sit as under your shield.”

At the fair Queen’s side I stood that day

When he bade them raise the siege,

And back to his Court he sped to know

How the lords would meet their Liege.

But when he summoned his Parliament,

The louring brows hung round,

Like clouds that circle the mountain-head

Ere the first low thunders sound.

For he had tamed the nobles’ lust

And curbed their power and pride,

And reached out an arm to right the poor

Through Scotland far and wide;

And many a lordly wrong-doer

By the headsman’s axe had died.

’Twas then upspoke Sir Robert Græme,

The bold o’ermastering man:—

“O King, in the name of your Three Estates

I set you under their ban!

“For, as your lords made oath to you

Of service and fealty,

Even in likewise you pledged your oath

Their faithful sire to be:—

“Yet all we here that are nobly sprung

Have mourned dear kith and kin

Since first for the Scottish Barons’ curse

Did your bloody rule begin.”

With that he laid his hands on his King:—

“Is this not so, my lords?”

But of all who had sworn to league with him

Not one spake back to his words.

Quoth the King:—“Thou speak’st but for one Estate,

Nor doth it avow thy gage.

Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence!”

The Græme fired dark with rage:—

“Who works for lesser men than himself,

He earns but a witless wage!”

But soon from the dungeon where he lay

He won by privy plots,

And forth he fled with a price on his head

To the country of the Wild Scots.

And word there came from Sir Robert Græme

To the King at Edinbro’:—

“No Liege of mine thou art; but I see

From this day forth alone in thee

God’s creature, my mortal foe.

“Through thee are my wife and children lost,

My heritage and lands;

And when my God shall show me a way,

Thyself my mortal foe will I slay

With these my proper hands.”

Against the coming of Christmastide

That year the King bade call

I’ the Black Friars’ Charterhouse of Perth

A solemn festival.

And we of his household rode with him

In a close-ranked company;

But not till the sun had sunk from his throne

Did we reach the Scottish Sea.

That eve was clenched for a boding storm,

’Neath a toilsome moon half seen;

The cloud stooped low and the surf rose high;

And where there was a line of the sky,

Wild wings loomed dark between.

And on a rock of the black beach-side,

By the veiled moon dimly lit,

There was something seemed to heave with life

As the King drew nigh to it.

And was it only the tossing furze

Or brake of the waste sea-wold?

Or was it an eagle bent to the blast?

When near we came, we knew it at last

For a woman tattered and old.

But it seemed as though by a fire within

Her writhen limbs were wrung;

And as soon as the King was close to her,

She stood up gaunt and strong.

’Twas then the moon sailed clear of the rack

On high in her hollow dome;

And still as aloft with hoary crest

Each clamorous wave rang home,

Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed

Amid the champing foam.

And the woman held his eyes with her eyes:—

“O King, thou art come at last;

But thy wraith has haunted the Scottish Sea

To my sight for four years past.

“Four years it is since first I met,

’Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu,

A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud,

And that shape for thine I knew.

“A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle

I saw thee pass in the breeze,

With the cerecloth risen above thy feet

And wound about thy knees.

“And yet a year, in the Links of Forth,

As a wanderer without rest,

Thou cam’st with both thine arms i’ the shroud

That clung high up thy breast.

“And in this hour I find thee here,

And well mine eyes may note

That the winding-sheet hath passed thy breast

And risen around thy throat.

“And when I meet thee again, O King,

That of death hast such sore drouth,—

Except thou turn again on this shore,—

The winding-sheet shall have moved once more

And covered thine eyes and mouth.

“O King, whom poor men bless for their King,

Of thy fate be not so fain;

But these my words for God’s message take,

And turn thy steed, O King, for her sake

Who rides beside thy rein!”

While the woman spoke, the King’s horse reared

As if it would breast the sea,

And the Queen turned pale as she heard on the gale

The voice die dolorously.

When the woman ceased, the steed was still,

But the King gazed on her yet,

And in silence save for the wail of the sea

His eyes and her eyes met.

At last he said:—“God’s ways are His own;

Man is but shadow and dust.

Last night I prayed by His altar-stone;

To-night I wend to the feast of His Son;

And in Him I set my trust.

“I have held my people in sacred charge,

And have not feared the sting

Of proud men’s hate,—to His will resign’d

Who has but one same death for a hind

And one same death for a King.

“And if God in His wisdom have brought close

The day when I must die,

That day by water or fire or air

My feet shall fall in the destined snare

Wherever my road may lie.

“What man can say but the Fiend hath set

Thy sorcery on my path,

My heart with the fear of death to fill,

And turn me against God’s very will

To sink in His burning wrath?”

The woman stood as the train rode past,

And moved nor limb nor eye;

And when we were shipped, we saw her there

Still standing against the sky.

As the ship made way, the moon once more

Sank slow in her rising pall;

And I thought of the shrouded wraith of the King,

And I said, “The Heavens know all.”

And now, ye lasses, must ye hear

How my name is Kate Barlass:—

But a little thing, when all the tale

Is told of the weary mass

Of crime and woe which in Scotland’s realm

God’s will let come to pass.

’Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth

That the King and all his Court

Were met, the Christmas Feast being done,

For solace and disport.

’Twas a wind-wild eve in February,

And against the casement-pane

The branches smote like summoning hands

And muttered the driving rain.

And when the wind swooped over the lift

And made the whole heaven frown,

It seemed a grip was laid on the walls

To tug the housetop down.

And the Queen was there, more stately fair

Than a lily in garden set;

And the king was loth to stir from her side;

For as on the day when she was his bride,

Even so he loved her yet.

And the Earl of Athole, the King’s false friend,

Sat with him at the board;

And Robert Stuart the chamberlain

Who had sold his sovereign Lord.

Yet the traitor Christopher Chaumber there

Would fain have told him all,

And vainly four times that night he strove

To reach the King through the hall.

But the wine is bright at the goblet’s brim

Though the poison lurk beneath;

And the apples still are red on the tree

Within whose shade may the adder be

That shall turn thy life to death.

There was a knight of the King’s fast friends

Whom he called the King of Love;

And to such bright cheer and courtesy

That name might best behove.

And the King and Queen both loved him well

For his gentle knightliness;

And with him the King, as that eve wore on,

Was playing at the chess.

And the King said, (for he thought to jest

And soothe the Queen thereby;)—

“In a book ’tis writ that this same year

A King shall in Scotland die.

“And I have pondered the matter o’er,

And this have I found, Sir Hugh,—

There are but two Kings on Scottish ground,

And those Kings are I and you.

“And I have a wife and a newborn heir,

And you are yourself alone;

So stand you stark at my side with me

To guard our double throne.

“For here sit I and my wife and child,

As well your heart shall approve,

In full surrender and soothfastness,

Beneath your Kingdom of Love.”

And the Knight laughed, and the Queen too smiled;

But I knew her heavy thought,

And I strove to find in the good King’s jest

What cheer might thence be wrought.

And I said, “My Liege, for the Queen’s dear love

Now sing the song that of old

You made, when a captive Prince you lay,

And the nightingale sang sweet on the spray,

In Windsor’s castle-hold.”

Then he smiled the smile I knew so well

When he thought to please the Queen;

The smile which under all bitter frowns

Of hate that rose between,

For ever dwelt at the poet’s heart

Like the bird of love unseen.

And he kissed her hand and took his harp,

And the music sweetly rang;

And when the song burst forth, it seemed

’Twas the nightingale that sang.

“Worship, ye lovers, on this May:

Of bliss your kalends are begun:

Sing with us, Away, Winter, away!

Come, Summer, the sweet season and sun!

Awake for shame,—your heaven is won,—

And amorously your heads lift all:

Thank Love, that you to his grace doth call!”

But when he bent to the Queen, and sang

The speech whose praise was hers

It seemed his voice was the voice of the Spring

And the voice of the bygone years.

“The fairest and the freshest flower

That ever I saw before that hour,

The which o’ the sudden made to start

The blood of my body to my heart.

Ah sweet, are ye a worldly creature

Or heavenly thing in form of nature?”

And the song was long, and richly stored

With wonder and beauteous things;

And the harp was tuned to every change

Of minstrel ministerings;

But when he spoke of the Queen at the last,

Its strings were his own heart-strings.

“Unworthy but only of her grace,

Upon Love’s rock that’s easy and sure,

In guerdon of all my love’s space

She took me her humble creäture.

Thus fell my blissful aventure

In youth of love that from day to day

Flowereth aye new, and further I say.

“To reckon all the circumstance

As it happed when lessen gan my sore,

Of my rancor and woful chance,

It were too long,—I have done therefor.

And of this flower I say no more

But unto my help her heart hath tended

And even from death her man defended.”

“Aye, even from death,” to myself I said;

For I thought of the day when she

Had borne him the news, at Roxbro’ siege,

Of the fell confederacy.

But Death even then took aim as he sang

With an arrow deadly bright;

And the grinning skull lurked grimly aloof,

And the wings were spread far over the roof

More dark than the winter night.

Yet truly along the amorous song

Of Love’s high pomp and state,

There were words of Fortune’s trackless doom

And the dreadful face of Fate.

And oft have I heard again in dreams

The voice of dire appeal

In which the King then sang of the pit

That is under Fortune’s wheel.

“And under the wheel beheld I there

An ugly Pit as deep as hell,

That to behold I quaked for fear:

And this I heard, that who therein fell

Came no more up, tidings to tell:

Whereat, astound of the fearful sight,

I wist not what to do for fright.”

And oft has my thought called up again

These words of the changeful song:—

“Wist thou thy pain and thy travàil

To come, well might’st thou weep and wail!”

And our wail, O God! is long.

But the song’s end was all of his love;

And well his heart was grac’d

With her smiling lips and her tear-bright eyes

As his arm went round her waist.

And on the swell of her long fair throat

Close clung the necklet-chain

As he bent her pearl-tir’d head aside,

And in the warmth of his love and pride

He kissed her lips full fain.

And her true face was a rosy red,

The very red of the rose

That, couched on the happy garden-bed,

In the summer sunlight glows.

And all the wondrous things of love

That sang so sweet through the song

Were in the look that met in their eyes,

And the look was deep and long.

’Twas then a knock came at the outer gate,

And the usher sought the King.

“The woman you met by the Scottish Sea,

My Liege, would tell you a thing;

And she says that her present need for speech

Will bear no gainsaying.”

And the King said:—“The hour is late;

To-morrow will serve, I ween.”

Then he charged the usher strictly, and said:

“No word of this to the Queen.”

But the usher came again to the King,

“Shall I call her back?” quoth he:

“For as she went on her way, she cried,

‘Woe! Woe! then the thing must be!’”

And the King paused, but he did not speak.

Then he called for the Voidee-cup;

And as we heard the twelfth hour strike,

There by true lips and false lips alike

Was the draught of trust drained up.

So with reverence meet to King and Queen,

To bed went all from the board;

And the last to leave of the courtly train

Was Robert Stuart the chamberlain

Who had sold his sovereign lord.

And all the locks of the chamber-door

Had the traitor riven and brast;

And that Fate might win sure way from afar,

He had drawn out every bolt and bar

That made the entrance fast.

And now at midnight the stole his way

To the moat of the outer wall,

And laid strong hurdles closely across

Where the traitors’ tread should fall.

But we that were the Queen’s bower-maids

Alone were left behind;

And with heed we drew the curtains close

Against the winter wind.

And now that all was still through the hall,

More clearly we heard the rain

That clamored ever against the glass

And the boughs that beat on the pane.

But the fire was bright in the ingle-nook,

And through empty space around

The shadows cast on the arras’d wall

’Mid the pictured kings stood sudden and tall

Like spectres sprung from the ground.

And the bed was dight in a deep alcove;

And as he stood by the fire

The king was still in talk with the Queen

While he doffed his goodly attire.

And the song had brought the image back

Of many a bygone year;

And many a loving word they said

With hand in hand and head laid to head;

And none of us went anear.

But Love was weeping outside the house,

A child in the piteous rain;

And as he watched the arrow of Death,

He wailed for his own shafts close in the sheath

That never should fly again.

And now beneath the window arose

A wild voice suddenly:

And the King reared straight, but the Queen fell back

As for bitter dule to dree;

And all of us knew the woman’s voice

Who spoke by the Scottish Sea.

“O King,” she cried, “in an evil hour

They drove me from thy gate;

And yet my voice must rise to thine ears;

But alas! it comes too late!

“Last night at mid-watch, by Aberdour,

When the moon was dead in the skies

O King, in a death-light of thine own

I saw thy shape arise.

“And in full season, as erst I said,

The doom had gained its growth;

And the shroud had risen above thy neck

And covered thine eyes and mouth.

“And no moon woke, but the pale dawn broke,

And still thy soul stood there;

And I thought its silence cried to my soul

As the first rays crowned its hair.

“Since then have I journeyed fast and fain

In very despite of Fate,

Lest Hope might still be found in God’s will:

But they drove me from thy gate.

“For every man on God’s ground, O King,

His death grows up from his birth

In a shadow-plant perpetually;

And thine towers high, a black yew-tree,

O’er the Charterhouse of Perth!”

That room was built far out from the house;

And none but we in the room

Might hear the voice that rose beneath,

Nor the tread of the coming doom.

For now there came a torchlight-glare,

And a clang of arms there came;

And not a soul in that space but thought

Of the foe Sir Robert Græme.

Yea, from the country of the Wild Scots,

O’er mountain, valley, and glen,

He had brought with him in murderous league

Three hundred armèd men.

The King knew all in an instant’s flash,

And like a King did he stand;

But there was no armor in all the room

Nor weapon lay to his hand.

And all we women flew to the door

And thought to have made it fast:

But the bolts were gone and the bars were gone

And the locks were riven and brast.

And he caught the pale queen in his arms

As the iron footsteps fell,—

Then loosed her, standing alone, and said,

“Our bliss was our farewell!”

And ’twixt his lips he murmured a prayer,

And he crossed his brow and breast;

And proudly in royal hardihood

Even so with folded arms he stood,—

The prize of the bloody quest.

Then on me leaped the Queen like a deer:

“Catherine, help!” she cried.

And low at his feet we clasped his knees

Together side by side.

“Oh! even a King, for his people’s sake,

From treasonous death must hide!”

“For her sake most!” I cried, and I marked

The pang that my words would wring.

And the iron tongs from the chimney-nook

I snatched and held to the King:—

“Wrench up the plank! and the vault beneath

Shall yield safe harboring.”

With brows low-bent, from my eager hand

The heavy heft did he take;

And the plank at his feet he wrenched and tore:

And as he frowned through the open floor,

Again I said, “For her sake!”

Then he cried to the Queen, “God’s will be done!”

For her hands were clasped in prayer.

And down he sprang to the inner crypt;

And straight we closed the plank he had ripp’d

And toiled to smoothe it fair.

(Alas! in that vault a gap once was

Wherethro’ the King might have fled;

But three days since close-walled had it been

By his will; for the ball would roll therein

When without at the palm he play’d.)

Then the Queen cried, “Catherine, keep the door,

And I to this will suffice!”

At her word I rose all dazed to my feet,

And my heart was fire and ice.

And louder ever the voices grew,

And the tramp of men in mail;

Until to my brain it seemed to be

As though I tossed on a ship at sea

In the teeth of a crashing gale.

Then back I flew to the rest; and hard

We strove with sinews knit

To force the table against the door;

But we might not compass it.

Then my wild gaze sped far down the hall

To the place of the hearthstone-sill;

And the Queen bent ever above the floor,

For the plank was rising still.

And now the rush was heard on the stair,

And “God, what help?” was our cry.

And was I frenzied or was I bold?

I looked at each empty stanchion-hold,

And no bar but my arm had I!

Like iron felt my arm, as through

The staple I made it pass:—

Alack! it was flesh and bone—no more!

’Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,

But I fell back Kate Barlass.

With that they all thronged into the hall,

Half dim to my failing ken;

And the space that was but a void before

Was a crowd of wrathful men.

Behind the door I had fall’n and lay,

Yet my sense was wildly aware,

And for all the pain of my shattered arm

I never fainted there.

Even as I fell, my eyes were cast

Where the King leaped down to the pit;

And lo! the plank was smooth in its place,

And the Queen stood far from it.

And under the litters and through the bed

And within the presses all

The traitors sought for the King, and pierced

The arras around the wall.

And through the chamber they ramped and stormed

Like lions loose in the lair,

And scarce could trust to their very eyes,—

For behold! no King was there.

Then one of them seized the Queen, and cried,—

“Now tell us, where is thy lord?”

And he held the sharp point over her heart:

She dropped not her eyes nor did she start,

But she answered never a word.

Then the sword half pierced the true true breast:

But it was the Græme’s own son

Cried, “This is a woman,—we seek a man!”

And away from her girdle-zone

He struck the point of the murderous steel;

And that foul deed was not done.

And forth flowed all the throng like a sea,

And ’twas empty space once more;

And my eyes sought out the wounded Queen

As I lay behind the door.

And I said: “Dear Lady, leave me here,

For I cannot help you now;

But fly while you may, and none shall reck

Of my place here lying low.”

And she said, “My Catherine, God help thee!”

Then she looked to the distant floor,

And clasping her hands, “Oh God help him,”

She sobbed, “for we can no more!”

But God He knows what help may mean,

If it mean to live or to die;

And what sore sorrow and mighty moan

On earth it may cost ere yet a throne

Be filled in His house on high.

And now the ladies fled with the Queen:

And through the open door

The night-wind wailed round the empty room

And the rushes shook on the floor.

And the bed drooped low in the dark recess

Whence the arras was rent away;

And the firelight still shone over the space

Where our hidden secret lay.

And the rain had ceased, and the moonbeams lit

The window high in the wall,—

Bright beams that on the plank that I knew

Through the painted pane did fall

And gleamed with the splendor of Scotland’s crown

And shield armorial.

But then a great wind swept up the skies,

And the climbing moon fell back;

And the royal blazon fled from the floor,

And nought remained on its track;

And high in the darkened window-pane

The shield and the crown were black.

And what I say next I partly saw

And partly I heard in sooth,

And partly since from the murderers’ lips

The torture wrung the truth.

For now again came the armèd tread

And fast through the hall it fell;

But the throng was less; and ere I saw,

By the voice without I could tell

That Robert Stuart had come with them

Who knew that chamber well.

And over the space the Græme strode dark

With his mantle round him flung;

And in his eye was a flaming light

But not a word on his tongue.

And Stuart held a torch to the floor,

And he found the thing he sought;

And they slashed the plank away with their swords;

And O God! I fainted not!

And the traitor held his torch in the gap,

All smoking and smouldering;

And through the vapor and fire, beneath

In the dark crypt’s narrow ring,

With a shout that pealed to the room’s high roof

They saw their naked King.

Half naked he stood, but stood as one

Who yet could do and dare;

With the crown, the King was stript away,—

The Knight was reft of his battle-array,—

But still the Man was there.

From the rout then stepped a villain forth,—

Sir John Hall was his name;

With a knife unsheathed he leapt to the vault

Beneath the torchlight-flame.

Of his person and stature was the King

A man right manly strong,

And mightily by the shoulder-blades

His foe to his feet he flung.

Then the traitor’s brother, Sir Thomas Hall,

Sprang down to work his worst;

And the King caught the second man by the neck

And flung him above the first.

And he smote and trampled them under him;

And a long month thence they bare

All black their throats with the grip of his hands

When the hangman’s hand came there.

And sore he strove to have had their knives,

But the sharp blades gashed his hands.

Oh James! so armed, thou hadst battled there

Till help had come of thy bands;

And oh! once more thou hadst held our throne

And ruled thy Scottish lands!

But while the King o’er his foes still raged

With a heart that nought could tame,

Another man sprang down to the crypt;

And with his sword in his hand hard-gripp’d

There stood Sir Robert Græme.

(Now shame on the recreant traitor’s heart

Who durst not face his King

Till the body unarmed was wearied out

With two-fold combating!

Ah! well might the people sing and say,

As oft ye have heard aright:—

“O Robert Græme, O Robert Græme,

Who slew our King, God give thee shame!”

For he slew him not as a knight.)

And the naked King turned round at bay,

But his strength had passed the goal,

And he could but gasp:—“Mine hour is come;

But oh! to succor thine own soul’s doom,

Let a priest now shrive my soul!”

And the traitor looked on the King’s spent strength,

And said:—“Have I kept my word?—

Yea, King, the mortal pledge that I gave?

No black friar’s shrift thy soul shall save,

But the shrift of this red sword!”

With that he smote his King through the breast;

And all they three in that pen

Fell on him and stabbed and stabbed him there

Like merciless murderous men.

Yet seemed it now that Sir Robert Græme,

Ere the King’s last breath was o’er,

Turned sick at heart with the deadly sight

And would have done no more.

But a cry came from the troop above:

“If him thou do not slay,

The price of his life that thou dost spare

Thy forfeit life shall pay!”

O God! what more did I hear or see,

Or how should I tell the rest?

But there at length our King lay slain

With sixteen wounds in his breast.

O God! and now did a bell boom forth,

And the murderers turned and fled;—

Too late, too late, O God, did it sound!—

And I heard the true men mustering round,

And the cries and the coming tread.

But ere they came to the black death-gap

Somewise did I creep and steal;

And lo! or ever I swooned away,

Through the dusk I saw where the white face lay

In the Pit of Fortune’s Wheel.

And now, ye Scottish maids who have heard

Dread things of the days grown old,—

Even at the last, of true Queen Jane

May somewhat yet be told,

And how she dealt for her dear lord’s sake

Dire vengeance manifold.

’Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth,

In the fair-lit Death-chapelle,

That the slain King’s corpse on bier was lain

With chant and requiem-knell.

And all with royal wealth of balm

Was the body purified:

And none could trace on the brow and lips

The death that he had died.

In his robes of state he lay asleep

With orb and sceptre in hand;

And by the crown he wore on his throne

Was his kingly forehead spann’d.

And, girls, ’twas a sweet sad thing to see

How the curling golden hair,

As in the day of the poet’s youth,

From the King’s crown clustered there.

And if all had come to pass in the brain

That throbbed beneath those curls,

Then Scots had said in the days to come

That this their soil was a different home

And a different Scotland, girls!

And the Queen sat by him night and day,

And oft she knelt in prayer,

All wan and pale in the widow’s veil

That shrouded her shining hair.

And I had got good help of my hurt:

And only to me some sign

She made; and save the priests that were there

No face would she see but mine.

And the month of March wore on apace;

And now fresh couriers fared

Still from the country of the Wild Scots

With news of the traitors snared.

And still as I told her day by day,

Her pallor changed to sight,

And the frost grew to a furnace-flame

That burnt her visage white.

And evermore as I brought her word,

She bent to her dead King James,

And in the cold ear with fire-drawn breath

She spoke the traitors’ names.

But when the name of Sir Robert Græme

Was the one she had to give,

I ran to hold her up from the floor;

For the froth was on her lips, and sore

I feared that she could not live.

And the month of March wore nigh to its end,

And still was the death-pall spread;

For she would not bury her slaughtered lord

Till his slayers all were dead.

And now of their dooms dread tidings came,

And of torments fierce and dire;

And nought she spake,—she had ceased to speak,—

But her eyes were a soul on fire.

But when I told her the bitter end

Of the stern and just award,

She leaned o’er the bier, and thrice three times

She kissed the lips of her lord.

And then she said,—“My King, they are dead!”

And she knelt on the chapel-floor,

And whispered low with a strange proud smile,—

“James, James, they suffered more!”

Last she stood up to her queenly height,

But she shook like an autumn leaf,

As though the fire wherein she burned

Then left her body, and all were turned

To winter of life-long grief.

And “O James!” she said,—“My James!” she said,—

“Alas for the woful thing,

That a poet true and a friend of man,

In desperate days of bale and ban,

Should needs be born a King!”