Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/108

 HOLYROOD. 83

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 :

&quot;An heir to Scotia s throne, Oh king !

A daughter fair ! &quot; the herald said ; No smile he gave, no hand he raised,

They touched his forehead he was dead.

And he, 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.

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