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.

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
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,
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,

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, 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.

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,
She bent to her dead King James,
And in the cold ear with fire-drawn breath
She spoke the traitors' names.

But when the name of Sir Robert Græme
Was the one she had to give,

I ran to hold her up from the floor;
For the froth was on her lips, and sore
I feared that she could not live.

And the month of March wore nigh to its end,
And still was the death-pall spread;
For she would not bury her slaughtered lord
Till his slayers all were dead.

And now of their dooms dread tidings came,

And of torments fierce and dire;

And nought she spake,-she had ceased to speak,-— But her eyes were a soul on fire.

But when I told her the bitter end
Of the stern and just award,

She leaned o'er the bier, and thrice three times
She kissed the lips of her lord.

And then she said," My King, they are dead!" And she knelt on the chapel-floor,

And whispered low with a strange proud smile,"James, James, they suffered more!"

Last she stood up to her queenly height,
But she shook like an autumn leaf,
As though the fire wherein she burned
Then left her body, and all were turned
To winter of life-long grief.

And "O James!" she said,-"My James!" she said,

"Alas for the woful thing,

That a poet true and a friend of man,

In desperate days of bale and ban,

Should needs be born a King!"

THE HOUSE OF LIFE:

A SONNET-SEQUENCE.

PART I.

YOUTH AND CHANGE.

PART II.

CHANGE AND FATE.

(The present full series of The House of Life consists of sonnets only. It will be evident that many among those now first added are still the work of earlier years.-1881.)

A Sonnet is a moment's monument,—
Memorial from the Soul's eternity
To one dead deathless hour.

Look that it be,

Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,

Of its own arduous fulness reverent :

Carve it in ivory or in ebony,

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see

Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals

a

The soul, its converse, to what Power 'tis due :Whether for tribute to the august appeals

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue,

It serve; or, 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath,
In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death.

I MARKED all kindred Powers the heart finds fair:—
Truth, with awed lips; and Hope, with eyes upcast;
And Fame, whose loud wings fan the ashen Past
To signal-fires, Oblivion's flight to scare;
And Youth, with still some single golden hair
Unto his shoulder clinging, since the last
Embrace wherein two sweet arms held him fast;
And Life, still wreathing flowers for Death to wear.
Love's throne was not with these; but far above
All passionate wind of welcome and farewell
He sat in breathless bowers they dream not of;
Though Truth foreknow Love's heart, and Hope foretell,
And Fame be for Love's sake desirable,

And Youth be dear, and Life be sweet to Love.

г

a.

b

SONNET II.

BRIDAL BIRTH.

As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and first
The mother looks upon the newborn child,
Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled
When her soul knew at length the Love it nurs'd.
Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst

And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.
Now, shadowed by his wings, our faces yearn
Together, as his full-grown feet now range

The grove, and his warm hands our couch prepare:

Till to his song our bodiless souls in turn

Be born his children, when Death's nuptial change
Leaves us for light the halo of his hair.