QUEEN TO
JAMES IV. KING OF SCOTS.
BY WILLIAM DUNBAR.
The Thistle and the Rose,
O'er flowers and herbage green,
By Lady Nature chose,
Brave King and lovely Queen.
I.
When March with varying winds was overpast,
And sweet April had with his silver showers
Ta'n leave of Nature with an orient blast,
And lusty May, that mother is of flowers,
Had made the birds begin by tymous hours;
Among the tender odours red and white,
Whose harmony to her was great delight.
In bed at morrow, sleeping as I lay,
Methought Aurora with her ruby ene,
In at my window looked by the day,
And halsit me with visage pale and green;
Upon her hand a lark sang frae the spleen,
"Lovers, awake out of your slumbering.
"See how the lusty morning does upspring."
III.
Methought fresh May before my bed upstood,
In weed depainted of ilk diverse hue,
Sober, benign, and full of mansuetude,
In bright attire of flowers, all forged new,
Of heavenly colour, white, red, brown and blue,
Balmit in dew, and gilt with Phebus' beams,
While all the house illumin'd with her leams.