Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/215

                    To the tyrant's bower,
                    In her beauty's power,
        She came as a lamb to the lion's lair,
        As the light bird cleaves the fields of air,
And carols blithe and sweet, while Treachery weaves its snare.

    Think! what were her pangs as she traced her fate
    On that changeful monarch's brow of hate?
    What were the thoughts which at midnight hour
    Thronged o'er her soul in yon dungeon-tower?
                    Regret, with pencil keen,
                    Retouched the deepening scene:
        Gay France, which bade with sunny skies
        Her careless childhood's pleasures rise,
        Earl Percy's love, his youthful grace;
        Her gallant brother's fond embrace;
        Her stately father's feudal halls,
Where proud heraldic annals decked the ancient walls.

            Wrapped in the scaffold's gloom,
            Brief tenant of that living tomb
        She stands! the life-blood chills her heart,
        And her tender glance from earth does part;
            But her infant daughter's image fair
            In the smile of innocence is there,
            It clings to her soul, mid its last despair;
        And the desolate queen is doomed to know
How far a mother's grief transcends a martyr's woe