Classic Poem

SCOTLAND .

Sweet, prayerful martyr of the sullen days,
When grim old London lingered in the gloom
Of frowning gibbets and of pyres, whose blaze
Was fed by flesh, and when the Tower-bell's boom

Rang forth a knell lugubrious thro' dark ways!
When love, and sin, and crime found one same tomb,
Remember, Queen, thy odious, hurried doom,
Hath found in history an avenging praise.

The cold, sharp axe that smote thy regal head
Sundered not with it thy poetic breath,
For, thro' long ages that have waned and fled,
We guard thy name that ne'er will know of death,
While thy pure blood still spatters with its red,
The hideous wrinkles of Elizabeth!