And death before and the sisterly shore
That smiles perfidiously.

O Mid-may freshness about her cheek
And piercing her poor attire,
The sting of defeat thou canst not allay,
The fever of heart and the fire,
The death-despair for the days that were,
And famine of vain desire!

--On Holyrood stairs an iron-heel'd clank
Came up in the gloaming hour:
And iron fingers have bursten the bar
Of the palace innermost bower:
And fiend-like on her the Douglas and Ker
And spectral Ruthven glower.

She hears the shriek as the Morton horde
Hurry the victim beneath;
And she feels their dead man's grasp on her skirt
In the frenzy-terror of death;
And the dastard King at her bosom cling
With a serpent's poison-breath.

O fair girl Queen, well weep for the friend
To his faith too faithful and thee;
For a brother's hypocrite tears; for the flight
To the Castle set by the sea;--
Where thy father's tomb lay and gaped in the gloom
'Twere better for thee to be!