Classic Poem

The sages — for authority, pray, look
Seneca's morals or the copy-book —
The sages to disparage woman's power,
Say beauty is a fair but fading flower; —
I cannot tell — I 've small philosophy —
Yet if it fades it does not surely die,
But, like the violet, when decayed in bloom,
Survives through many a year in rich perfume.
Witness our theme to-night; two ages gone,
A third wanes fast, since Mary filled the throne.
Brief was her bloom with scarce one sunny day
'Twixt Pinkie's field and fatal Fotheringay:
But when, while Scottish hearts and blood you boast,
Shall sympathy with Mary's woes be lost?
O'er Mary's memory the learned quarrel,
By Mary's grave the poet plants his laurel,
Time's echo, old tradition, makes her name
The constant burden of his faltering theme;
In each old hall his gray-haired heralds tell
Of Mary's picture and of Mary's cell,
And show — my fingers tingle at the thought —
The loads of tapestry which that poor queen wrought.
In vain did fate bestow a double dower
Of every ill that waits on rank and power,
Of every ill on beauty that attends —
False ministers, false lovers, and false friends.
Spite of three wedlocks so completely curst,
They rose in ill from bad to worse and worst,
In spite of errors — I dare not say more,
For Duncan Targe lays hand on his claymore.
In spite of all, however humors vary,
There is a talisman in that word Mary,
That unto Scottish bosoms all and some
Is found the genuine open sesamum!
In history, ballad, poetry, or novel,
It charms alike the castle and the hovel,
Even you — forgive me — who, demure and shy,
Gorge not each bait nor stir at every fly,
Must rise to this, else in her ancient reign
The Rose of Scotland has survived in vain.