In colours lively, delicate, and just.
As every one must be familiar with a poem, which will be read when Shakespeare and Byron are not, a simple reference only is necessary. One of the first poets of the age has more recently enriched the pages of the New Scots Magazine with verses on the same subject, yet we must confess, in our humble estimation, that the Carstairs remains inviolate—virgo intacta. That our readers, however, may judge for themselves, we subjoin a stanza or two.
I dwell upon a mournful theme; however dark it be,
It is no vague, no empty dream, that visions such to me:
Were all my numbers flowing rills, all glittering stars my dots,
Yet could I never sing the ills of—Mary Queen of Scots!
Oh! she was bright and beautiful—her charms her birth enhance;
Descended from a hundred kings—the Dowager of France.
Yet she was born in grief, to bear the trials Heaven allots—
To which, "alas! all flesh is heir"—e'en Mary Queen of Scots!