by Homer
But we that were the Queen’s bower-maids
Alone were left behind;
And with heed we drew the curtains close
Against the winter wind. 435
And now that all was still through the hall,
More clearly we heard the rain
That clamored ever against the glass
And the boughs that beat on the pane.
But the fire was bright in the ingle-nook, 440
And through empty space around
The shadows cast on the arras’d wall
‘Mid the pictured kings stood sudden and tall
Like spectres sprung from the ground.
And the bed was dight in a deep alcove; 445
And as he stood by the fire
The king was still in talk with the Queen
While he doffed his goodly attire.
And the song had brought the image back
Of many a bygone year; 450
And many a loving word they said
With hand in hand and head laid to head;
And none of us went anear.
But Love was weeping outside the house,
A child in the piteous rain; 455
And as he watched the arrow of Death,
He wailed for his own shafts close in the sheath
That never should fly again.
And now beneath the window arose
A wild voice suddenly: 460
And the King reared straight, but the Queen fell back
As for bitter dule to dree;
And all of us knew the woman’s voice
Who spoke by the Scottish Sea.
“O King,” she cried, “in an evil hour 465
They drove me from thy gate;
And yet my voice must rise to thine ears;
But alas! it comes too late!
“Last night at mid-watch, by Aberdour,
When the moon was dead in the skies 470
O King, in a death-light of thine own
I saw thy shape arise.
“And in full season, as erst I said,
The doom had gained its growth;
And the shroud had risen above thy neck 475
And covered thine eyes and mouth.
“And no moon woke, but the pale dawn broke,
And still thy soul stood there;
And I thought its silence cried to my soul
As the first rays crowned its hair. 480
“Since then have I journeyed fast and fain
In very despite of Fate,
Lest Hope might still be found in God’s will:
But they drove me from thy gate.
“For every man on God’s ground, O King, 485
His death grows up from his birth
In a shadow-plant perpetually;
And thine towers high, a black yew-tree,
O’er the Charterhouse of Perth!”
That room was built far out from the house; 490
And none but we in the room
Might hear the voice that rose beneath,
Nor the tread of the coming doom.
For now there came a torchlight-glare,
And a clang of arms there came; 495
And not a soul in that space but thought
Of the foe Sir Robert Græme.
Yea, from the country of the Wild Scots,
O’er mountain, valley, and glen,
He had brought with him in murderous league 500
Three hundred armèd men.
The King knew all in an instant’s flash,
And like a King did he stand;
But there was no armor in all the room
Nor weapon lay to his hand. 505
And all we women flew to the door
And thought to have made it fast:
But the bolts were gone and the bars were gone
And the locks were riven and brast.
And he caught the pale queen in his arms 510
As the iron footsteps fell, —
Then loosed her, standing alone, and said,
“Our bliss was our farewell!”
And ‘twixt his lips he murmured a prayer,
And he crossed his brow and breast; 515
And proudly in royal hardihood
Even so with folded arms he stood, —
The prize of the bloody quest.
Then on me leaped the Queen like a deer:
“Catherine, help!” she cried. 520
And low at his feet we clasped his knees
Together side by side.
“Oh! even a King, for his people’s sake,
From treasonous death must hide!”
“For her sake most!” I cried, and I marked 525
The pang that my words would wring.
And the iron tongs from the chimney-nook
I snatched and held to the King: —
“Wrench up the plank! and the vault beneath
Shall yield safe harboring.” 530
With brows low-bent, from my eager hand
The heavy heft did he take;
And the plank at his feet he wrenched and tore:
And as he frowned through the open floor,
Again I said, “For her sake!” 535
Then he cried to the Queen, “God’s will be done!”
For her hands were clasped in prayer.
And down he sprang to the inner crypt;
And straight we closed the plank he had ripp’d
And toiled to smoothe it fair. 540
(Alas! in that vault a gap once was
Wherethro’ the King might have fled;
But three days since close-walled had it been
By his will; for the ball would roll therein
When without at the palm he play’d.) 545
Then the Queen cried, “Catherine, keep the door,
And I to this will suffice!”
At her word I rose all dazed to my feet,
And my heart was fire and ice.
And louder ever the voices grew, 550
And the tramp of men in mail;
Until to my brain it seemed to be
As though I tossed on a ship at sea
In the teeth of a crashing gale.
Then back I flew to the rest; and hard 555
We strove with sinews knit
To force the table against the door;
But we might not compass it.
Then my wild gaze sped far down the hall
To the place of the hearthstone-sill; 560
And the Queen bent ever above the floor,
For the plank was rising still.
And now the rush was heard on the stair,
And “God, what help?” was our cry.
And was I frenzied or was I bold? 565
I looked at each empty stanchion-hold,
And no bar but my arm had I!
Like iron felt my arm, as through
The staple I made it pass: —
Alack! it was flesh and bone — no more! 570
’Twas Catherine Douglas sprang to the door,
But I fell back Kate Barlass.
With that they all thronged into the hall,
Half dim to my failing ken;
And the space that was but a void before 575
Was a crowd of wrathful men.
Behind the door I had fall’n and lay,
Yet my sense was wildly aware,
And for all the pain of my shattered arm
I never fainted there. 580
Even as I fell, my eyes were cast
Where the King leaped down to the pit;
And lo! the plank was smooth in its place,
And the Queen stood far from it.
And under the litters and through the bed 585
And within the presses all
The traitors sought for the King, and pierced
The arras around the wall.
And through the chamber they ramped and stormed
Like lions loose in the lair, 590
And scarce could trust to their very eyes, —
For behold! no King was there.
Then one of them seized the Queen, and cried, —
“Now tell us, where is thy lord?”
And he held the sharp point over her heart: 595
She dropped not her eyes nor did she start,
But she answered never a word.
Then the sword half pierced the true true breast:
But it was the Græme’s own son
Cried, “This is a woman, — we seek a man!” 600
And away from her girdle-zone
He struck the point of the murderous steel;
And that foul deed was not done.
And forth flowed all the throng like a sea,
And ’twas empty space once more; 605
And my eyes sought out the wounded Queen
As I lay behind the door.
And I said: “Dear Lady, leave me here,
For I cannot help you now;
But fly while you may, and none shall reck 610
Of my place here lying low.”
And she said, “My Catherine, God help thee!”
Then she looked to the distant floor,
And clasping her hands, “Oh God help him,”
She sobbed, “for we can no more!” 615
But God He knows what help may mean,
If it mean to live or to die;
And what sore sorrow and mighty moan
On earth it may cost ere yet a throne
Be filled in His house on high. 620
And now the ladies fled with the Queen:
And through the open door
The night-wind wailed round the empty room
And the rushes shook on the floor.
And the bed drooped low in the dark recess 625
Whence the arras was rent away;
And the firelight still shone over the space
Where our hidden secret lay.
And the rain had ceased, and the moonbeams lit
The window high in the wall, — 630
Bright beams that on the plank that I knew
Through the painted pane did fall
And gleamed with the splendor of Scotland’s crown
And shield armorial.
But then a great wind swept up the skies, 635
And the climbing moon fell back;
And the royal blazon fled from the floor,
And nought remained on its track;
And high in the darkened window-pane
The shield and the crown were black. 640
And what I say next I partly saw
And partly I heard in sooth,
And partly since from the murderers’ lips
The torture wrung the truth.
For now again came the armèd tread 645
And fast through the hall it fell;
But the throng was less; and ere I saw,
By the voice without I could tell
That Robert Stuart had come with them
Who knew that chamber well. 650
And over the space the Græme strode dark
With his mantle round him flung;
And in his eye was a flaming light
But not a word on his tongue.
And Stuart held a torch to the floor, 655
And he found the thing he sought;
And they slashed the plank away with their swords;
And O God! I fainted not!
And the traitor held his torch in the gap,
All smoking and smouldering; 660
And through the vapor and fire, beneath
In the dark crypt’s narrow ring,
With a shout that pealed to the room’s high roof
They saw their naked King.
Half naked he stood, but stood as one 665
Who yet could do and dare;
With the crown, the King was stript away, —
The Knight was reft of his battle-array, —
But still the Man was there.
From the rout then stepped a villain forth, — 670
Sir John Hall was his name;
With a knife unsheathed he leapt to the vault
Beneath the torchlight-flame.
Of his person and stature was the King
A man right manly strong, 675
And mightily by the shoulder-blades
His foe to his feet he flung.
Then the traitor’s brother, Sir Thomas Hall,
Sprang down to work his worst;
And the King caught the second man by the neck 680
And flung him above the first.
And he smote and trampled them under him;
And a long month thence they bare
All black their throats with the grip of his hands
When the hangman’s hand came there. 685
And sore he strove to have had their knives,
But the sharp blades gashed his hands.
Oh James! so armed, thou hadst battled there
Till help had come of thy bands;
And oh! once more thou hadst held our throne 690
And ruled thy Scottish lands!
But while the King o’er his foes still raged
With a heart that nought could tame,
Another man sprang down to the crypt;
And with his sword in his hand hard-gripp’d 695
There stood Sir Robert Græme.
(Now shame on the recreant traitor’s heart
Who durst not face his King
Till the body unarmed was wearied out
With two-fold combating! 700
Ah! well might the people sing and say,
As oft ye have heard aright: —
“O Robert Græme, O Robert Græme,
Who slew our King, God give thee shame!”
For he slew him not as a knight.) 705
And the naked King turned round at bay,
But his strength had passed the goal,
And he could but gasp:— “Mine hour is come;
But oh! to succor thine own soul’s doom,
Let a priest now shrive my soul!” 710
And the traitor looked on the King’s spent strength,
And said:— “Have I kept my word? —
Yea, King, the mortal pledge that I gave?
No black friar’s shrift thy soul shall save,
But the shrift of this red sword!” 715
With that he smote his King through the breast;
And all they three in that pen
Fell on him and stabbed and stabbed him there
Like merciless murderous men.
Yet seemed it now that Sir Robert Græme, 720
Ere the King’s last breath was o’er,
Turned sick at heart with the deadly sight
And would have done no more.
But a cry came from the troop above:
“If him thou do not slay, 725
The price of his life that thou dost spare
Thy forfeit life shall pay!”
O God! what more did I hear or see,
Or how should I tell the rest?
But there at length our King lay slain 730
With sixteen wounds in his breast.
O God! and now did a bell boom forth,
And the murderers turned and fled; —
Too late, too late, O God, did it sound! —
And I heard the true men mustering round, 735
And the cries and the coming tread.
But ere they came to the black death-gap
Somewise did I creep and steal;
And lo! or ever I swooned away,
Through the dusk I saw where the white face lay 740
In the Pit of Fortune’s Wheel.
And now, ye Scottish maids who have heard
Dread things of the days grown old, —
Even at the last, of true Queen Jane
May somewhat yet be told, 745
And how she dealt for her dear lord’s sake
/> Dire vengeance manifold.
’Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth,
In the fair-lit Death-chapelle,
That the slain King’s corpse on bier was lain 750
With chant and requiem-knell.
And all with royal wealth of balm
Was the body purified:
And none could trace on the brow and lips
The death that he had died. 755
In his robes of state he lay asleep
With orb and sceptre in hand;
And by the crown he wore on his throne
Was his kingly forehead spann’d.
And, girls, ’twas a sweet sad thing to see 760
How the curling golden hair,
As in the day of the poet’s youth,
From the King’s crown clustered there.
And if all had come to pass in the brain
That throbbed beneath those curls, 765
Then Scots had said in the days to come
That this their soil was a different home
And a different Scotland, girls!
And the Queen sat by him night and day,
And oft she knelt in prayer, 770
All wan and pale in the widow’s veil
That shrouded her shining hair.
And I had got good help of my hurt:
And only to me some sign
She made; and save the priests that were there 775
No face would she see but mine.
And the month of March wore on apace;
And now fresh couriers fared
Still from the country of the Wild Scots
With news of the traitors snared. 780
And still as I told her day by day,
Her pallor changed to sight,
And the frost grew to a furnace-flame
That burnt her visage white.
And evermore as I brought her word, 785
She bent to her dead King James,