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| O HAD truth power, the guiltless could not fall, | |
| Malice win glory, or revenge triumph; | |
| But truth alone cannot encounter all. | |
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| Mercy is fled to God, which mercy made; | |
| Compassion dead; faith turned to policy; | 5 |
| Friends know not those who sit in sorrow’s shade. | |
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| For what we sometime were, we are no more: | |
| Fortune hath changed our shape, and destiny | |
| Defaced the very form we had before. | |
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| All love, and all desert of former times, | 10 |
| Malice hath covered from my sovereign’s eyes, | |
| And largely laid abroad supposed crimes. | |
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| But kings call not to mind what vassals were, | |
| But know them now, as envy hath described them: | |
| So can I look on no side from despair. | 15 |
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| Cold walls! to you I speak; but you are senseless: | |
| Celestial Powers! you hear, but have determined, | |
| And shall determine, to my greatest happiness. | |
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| Then unto whom shall I unfold my wrong, | |
| Cast down my tears, or hold up folded hands? | 20 |
| To Her, to whom remorse doth most belong; | |
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| To Her who is the first, and may alone | |
| Be justly called the Empress of the Bretanes. | |
| Who should have mercy if a Queen have none? | |
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| Save those that would have died for your defence! | 25 |
| Save him whose thoughts no treason ever tainted! | |
| For lo! destruction is no recompense. | |
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| If I have sold my duty, sold my faith | |
| To strangers, which was only due to One; | |
| Nothing I should esteem so dear as death. | 30 |
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| But if both God and Time shall make you know | |
| That I, your humblest vassal, am oppressed, | |
| Then cast your eyes on undeserved woe; | |
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| That I and mine may never mourn the miss | |
| Of Her we had, but praise our living Queen, | 35 |
| Who brings us equal, if not greater, bliss. | |
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