"O realm more wide, from clime to clime, Than ever Caesar sway'd; O conquests in that world of time My grand desire survey'd!"-- Blood-red upon his loathing eyes Now glares the gaoler's torch: "Come forth, the day is in the skies, The Death-cart at the porch!" Pass on!--to thee the Parcae give The fairest lot of all;-- In golden poet-dreams to live, And ere they fade--to fall! The shrine that longest guards a Name Is oft an early tomb; The Poem most secure of fame Is--some wrong'd poet's doom! The Parcae.--Leaf the Fourth. MARY STUART AND HER MOURNER. "Mary Stuart perished at the age of forty-four years and two months. Her remains were taken from her weeping servants, and a green cloth, torn in haste from an old billiard table, was flung over her once beautiful form. Thus it remained unwatched and unattended, except by a poor little lap-dog, which could not be induced to quit the body of its mistress. This faithful little animal was found dead two days afterwards; and the circumstance made such an impression even on the hard-hearted minister of Elizabeth, that it was mentioned in the official despatches." MRS. JAMIESON'S _Female Sovereigns--Mary Queen of Scots_. The axe its bloody work had done; The corpse neglected lay; This peopled world could spare not one To watch beside the clay. The fairest work from Nature's hand That e'er on mortals shone, A sunbeam stray'd from fairy land To fade upon a throne;-- The Venus of the Tomb[D] whose form Was destiny and death; The Siren's voice that stirr'd a storm In each melodious breath;-- Such _was_, what now by fate is hurl'd To rot, unwept, away. A star has vanish'd from the world; And none to miss the ray! Stern Knox, that loneliness forlorn A harsher truth might teach To royal pomps, than priestly scorn To royal sins can preach! No victims now that lip can make! That hand how powerless now! O God! and what a King--but take A bauble from the brow? The world is full of life and love; The world methinks might spare From millions, one to watch above The dust of monarchs there. And not one human eye!--yet lo What stirs the funeral pall? What sound--it is not human woe-- Wails moaning through the hall? Close by the form mankind desert One thing a vigil keeps; More near and near to that still heart It wistful, wondering creeps. It gazes on those glazed eyes, It hearkens for a breath-- It does not know that kindness dies, And love departs from death. It fawns as fondly as before Upon that icy hand. And hears from lips, that speak no more, The voice that can command. To that poor fool, alone on earth, No matter what had been The pomp, the fall, the guilt, the worth, The Dead was still a Queen.