| |
| IN the Chapel of Henry the Seventh, | |
| Where the sculptured ceilings rare | |
| Show the conquered stone-work, hanging | |
| Like cobweb films in air, | |
| There are held two shrines in keeping, | 5 |
| Whose memories closely press: | |
| The tomb of the Rose of Scotland, | |
| And that of stout Queen Bess. | |
| |
| Each side of the sleeping Tudor | |
| They rest; and over their dust | 10 |
| The canopies mould and darken | |
| And the gilding gathers rust; | |
| While low on the marble tablet, | |
| Each effigied in stone, | |
| They lie,—as they went to judgment,— | 15 |
| Uncrowned, and cold, and alone. | |
| |
| Beside them pass the thousands | |
| Each day; and hundreds strive | |
| To read the whole of the lesson | |
| That knoweth no man alive,— | 20 |
| Of which was more to be pitied, | |
| And which was more to be feared,— | |
| The strong queen, with the nerve of manhood, | |
| Or the woman too close endeared. | |
| |
| One weakened her land with faction, | 25 |
| One strengthened with bands of steel; | |
| One died on the black-draped scaffold, | |
| One broke on old age’s wheel: | |
| And both—O sweet heaven, the pity!— | |
| Felt the thorns in the rim of the crown | 30 |
| Far more than the sweep of the ermine | |
| Or the ease of the regal down. | |
| |
| Was the Stuart of Scotland plotting | |
| For her royal sister’s all? | |
| Was it hatred in crown or in person | 35 |
| Drove the Tudor to work her fall? | |
| Was there guilty marriage with Bothwell | |
| And black crime at the Kirk of Field? | |
| And what meed had the smothered passion | |
| That for Essex stood half revealed? | 40 |
| |
| Dark questions!—and who shall solve them? | |
| Not one, till the great assize, | |
| When royal secrets and motives | |
| Shall be opened to commonest eyes;— | |
| Not even by bookworm students, | 45 |
| Who shall dig and cavil and grope, | |
| And keep to the ear learned promise, | |
| While they break it to the hope! | |
| |
| Ah, well,—there is one sad lesson | |
| Made clear to us all, at the worst: | 50 |
| Of two forces made quite incarnate, | |
| And that equally blessed and cursed. | |
| With the English woman, all-conquering | |
| Was Power, and its handmaid, Pride; | |
| With the Scottish walked fierce-eyed Passion, | 55 |
| Calling lovers to her side; | |
| |
| And the paths were the paths of ruin, | |
| Of disease and of woe, to both, | |
| With their guerdon the sleepless pillow, | |
| And their weapon the broken troth; | 60 |
| And each, when she died, might have shuddered | |
| To know she had failed to find | |
| A content, even poorly perfect, | |
| As that blessing some landless hind! | |
| |
| Ah, well, again,—they are sleeping | 65 |
| Divided, yet side by side; | |
| And the lesson were far less perfect | |
| If their sepulchres severed wide. | |
| And well for Bess and for Marie | |
| That the eyes, to judge them at last, | 70 |
| Will be free from the gloss and glamour | |
| Blinding ours through present and past! | |
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