"O realm more wide, from clime to clime,
Than ever Cæsar sway'd;
O conquests in that world of time
My grand desire survey'd!"—
Blood-red upon his loathing eyes
Now glares the gaoler's torch:
"Come forth, the day is in the skies,
The Death-cart at the porch!"
Pass on!—to thee the Parcæ give
The fairest lot of all;—
In golden poet-dreams to live,
And ere they fade—to fall!
The shrine that longest guards a Name
Is oft an early tomb;
The Poem most secure of fame
Is—some wrong'd poet's doom!
The Parcæ.—Leaf the Fourth.
MARY STUART AND HER MOURNER.
"Mary Stuart perished at the age of forty-four years and two months. Her remains were taken from her weeping servants, and a green cloth, torn in haste from an old billiard table, was flung over her once beautiful form. Thus it remained unwatched and unattended, except by a poor little lap-dog, which could not be induced to quit the body of its mistress. This faithful little animal was found dead two days afterwards; and the circumstance made such an impression even on the hard-hearted minister of Elizabeth, that it was mentioned in the official despatches."
Mrs. Jamieson's Female Sovereigns—Mary Queen of Scots.
The axe its bloody work had done;
The corpse neglected lay;
This peopled world could spare not one
To watch beside the clay.
The fairest work from Nature's hand
That e'er on mortals shone,
A sunbeam stray'd from fairy land
To fade upon a throne;—