The Book of Scottish Song/Queen Mary's Lament
Queen Mary’s Lament.
[These fine verses were written by Burns for Johnson's Museum, where they are adapted to a simple old air, called "Mary Queen of Scots' Lament."]
Now nature hangs her mantle green
On ilka blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out ower the grassy lea.
Now Phœbus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies,
But nocht can glad the weary wicht,
That fast in durance lies.
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose doun the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae.
Now laverocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing,
The merle, in his noontide bower,
Makes woodland echoes ring.
The mavis, mild wi' mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest;
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove these sweets amang;
But I, the queen o' a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang.
I was the queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I ha'e been;
Fu' lightly rase I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e'en.
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there,
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,
And never-ending care.
But as for thee, thou false woman
My sister and my fae,
Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword,
That through thy soul shall gae.
The weeping blood in woman's breast,
Was never known to thee,
Nor the balm that draps on wounds of woe,
From woman's pitying e'e.
My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine,
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er would blink on mine.
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee;
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend,
Remember him for me.
Oh, soon to me may summer sun
Nae mair licht up the morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn.
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave,
And the next flowers that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave!