Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.

February 8

Adieux a Mary Stuart

By Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

Executed by order of Queen Elizabeth on Feb. 8, 1587, at Fotheringay castle.

THOUGH all things breathe or sound of fight

That yet make up your spell,

To bid you were to bid the light

Farewell.

Farewell the song says only, being

A star whose race is run:

Farewell the soul says never, seeing

The sun.

Yet, wellnigh as with flash of tears,

The song must say but so

That took your praise up twenty years

Ago.

More bright than stars or moons that vary,

Sun kindling heaven and hell,

Here, after all these years, Queen Mary,

Farewell.