Zinzendorff and Other Poems/Lady Jane Grey
LADY JANE GREY.
On seeing a picture representing her engaged in the study of Plato.
So early wise! Beauty hath been to thee
No traitor-friend, to steal the key
Of knowledge from thy mind,
Making thee gorgeous to the eye,
Flaunting and flushed with vanity,
Yet inly blind.
Hark! the hunting-bugle sounds,
Thy father's park is gay,
Stately nobles cheer the hounds,
Soft hands the coursers sway,
Haste to the sport, away! away!
Youth, and mirth, and love are there,
Lingerest thou, fairest of the fair,
In thy lone chamber to explore
Ancient Plato's classic lore?
Old Roger Ascham's gaze
Is fix'd on thee with fond amaze;
Doubtless the sage doth marvel deep,
That for philosophy divine
A lady could decline
The pleasure 'mid yon pageant-train to sweep,
The glory o'er some five-barr'd gate to leap,
And in the toil of reading Greek
Which many a student flies,
Find more entrancing rhetoric
Than Fashion's page supplies.
Ah sweet Enthusiast! happier far for thee
Had'st thou thy musing intellectual joy,
Thro' life indulg'd without alloy,
In solitary sanctity,
Nor dar'd Ambition's fearful shrift,
Nor laid thy shrinking hand on Edward's fatal gift.
The Crown! The Crown! It sparkles on thy brow,
I see Northumberland with joy elate,
And lo! thy haughty sire doth bow
Honoring thy high estate,
She too, of royal Tudor's line,
Who at her early bridal shone
Resplendent on the Gallic throne
Humbleth her knee to thine,
She, the austerely beautiful, whose eye
Check'd thy timid infancy
Until thy heart's first buds folded their leaves to die,
Homage to her meek daughter pays,
Yet, sooth to say, one fond embrace,
One kiss, such as the peasant-mother gives
When on its evening bed her child she lays,
Had dearer been to thee, than all their courtly phrase.
The Tower! The Tower! thou bright-hair'd beauteous one!
There, where the captive's breath
Had sigh'd itself in bitterness away,
Where iron nerves have wither'd one by one,
And the sick eye shut from the glorious sun
Hath grop'd o'er those grim walls till idiocy
Made life like death,
There must thy resting be?
Not long! Not long! What savage band
'Neath thy grated window bears
The headless form, the lifeless hand
Of him, the magic of whose love could charm away thy cares?
Guilford! thy husband! yet the gushing tear
Scarce flows to mourn his fate severe,
Thy pious thought doth rise
To those unclouded skies,
Where he, amid the angel train
Doth for thy coming wait, to part no more again.
The Scaffold! Must it be! Stern England's Queen
Hast thou such doom decreed?
Dwells Draco's soul beneath a woman's mien?
Must guileless youth and peerless beauty bleed?
Away! Away! I will not see the deed!
Fresh drops of crimson stain the new-fall'n snow,
The wintry winds wail fitfully and low;—
But the meek victim is not there,
Far from this troubled scene,
High o'er the tyrant Queen,
She finds that amaranthine crown, which sinless seraphs wear.