Page:Poems Dorr.djvu/471

O, some of those royal dames
 Drooped, with dishevelled hair,
And mien of one who claims
 Close kindred with despair!
And some were proud and cold,
 With eyes that blazed like stars,
As under that archway old
 They passed to their prison-bars,

To prison-bars or death!
 Fair, hapless Anne Boleyn;
That haughty maid, Elizabeth;
 Northumberland's pale queen;
Margaret Plantagenet,
 Her gray locks floating wild—
How the line lengthens yet,
 Knight, prelate, statesman, child!

Fiercely the black portcullis
 Frowned as I onward went;
The Bloody Tower is this—
 Strong tower of dread portent!
"Show me the Princes' Chamber,"
 To the Yeoman Guard I said;
O, the stairs were steep to clamber,
 And the rough vault dark o'erhead!

No sigh in the sunny room,
 No moan from the groined roof,
No wail of expectant doom
 Echoed alow, aloof!
But instead a mother sang
 To a child upon her knee,
Whose peals of laughter rang
 Like sweet bells mad with glee.