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!"
WHEN do I see thee most, beloved one? When in the light the spirits of mine eyes Before thy face, their altar, solemnize
The worship of that Love through thee made known? Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,) Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, And my soul only sees thy soul its own? O love, my love! if I no more should see Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,-
How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, The wind of Death's imperishable wing?
By what word's power, the key of paths untrod, Shall I the difficult deeps of Love explore, Till parted waves of Song yield up the shore Even as that sea which Israel crossed dryshod? For lo! in some poor rhythmic period, Lady, I fain would tell how evermore Thy soul I know not from thy body, nor Thee from myself, neither our love from God.
Yea, in God's name, and Love's, and thine, would I
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