Poems (Hale)/The Deathbed of Queen Elizabeth

by Mary Whitwell Hale

THE DEATH-BED OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Restless she lies upon her couch, England's anointed Queen,
She of the bold and iron will, of stern and haughty mien.
Feeble as ever helpless child, she draws her failing breath,
And she who human power defied, bows at the call of death.

His hand of ice is on her heart, his breath upon her brow:
Where is her might, that ruthless one? what is her sceptre now?
What boots it that by sea and shore, the conquering cry ascends,
And with her name, the maiden Queen, the song of triumph blends?

Why struggles thus her trembling frame, as seized with sudden dread?
Why in the cushion's downy depths hides she her haughty head?
Rank showers its honors on her head, nor brings her soul release;
Wealth lays its treasures at her feet,—it cannot purchase peace.

O! such a glance of agony was in that fearful eye,
As though arrayed in fleshly robe, the pale-browed king were nigh.
The lowliest subject in her realm at his stern call might bow,
Nor wear such fixed and lone despair upon his pallid brow.

Well may deep dread the spirit seize, the eye with fear dilate:
What to the guilty shall avail the splendors of their state?
The shades of vanished years before her mental vision pass,
Reflected with unerring truth from Memory's faithful glass.

Beside her couch a vision stands of rich and queenlike grace;
And truth and goodness sit enthroned upon her youthful face.
She rises, radiant with the spell of love's celestial light,
The worshiped idol of a court, the beautiful, the bright.

Kings bow in homage at her feet, their fealty to pay;
The minstrel breathes upon her ear his soul-entrancing lay.
Shrined in a nation's heart, the theme of story and of song,
Yet warmly loved of all, most bright amid a princely throng.

A moment, and the cloud has drooped upon her glorious brow;
Her cheek is pale with care, her eye is dim with weeping now:
Yet peerless, though the woes of years have bowed her spirit down,
As when there shone upon that brow a monarch's jeweled crown.

Where was thy sympathy, thou skilled in cold and treacherous art?
Stern one! hadst thou no woman's love within thy woman's heart?
Such mingled grief and loveliness might win a heart of stone;
Yet nature's bond of fellowship thy spirit did not own.

Lured by thy promises, she turned her weary soul to thee:
Thou didst its guileless trust betray, in bitter mockery.
Meekly, beneath the lifted steel she bowed her head in prayer,
And left thy earth-bound soul to meet the depth of its despair.

The past gives back its shadowy forms, the dust its shrouded dead,
And she, that cold and voiceless form, stands now beside thy bed.
Well may'st thou shrink in agony, guilt-stricken and dismayed,
Thus haunted in thy dying hour by her thine arts betrayed.