Select poems / by L.H. Sigourney [electronic resource]

ANNA BOLEYN

On seeing the axe with which Anna Boleyn was beheaded, still preserved in the Tower of London.

STERN minister of fate severe, Who, drunk with beauty's blood, Defying time, dost linger here, And frown with ruffian visage drear, Like beacon on destruction's flood,—Say;—when ambition's giddy dream First lured thy victim's heart aside, Why, like a serpent, didst thou hide, 'Mid clustering flowers, and robes of pride, Thy warning gleam? Hadst thou but once arisen in vision dread, From glory's fearful cliff her startled step had fled.

Ah! little she reck'd, when St. Edward's crown So heavily press'd her tresses fair, That, with sleepless wrath, its thorns of care Would rankle within her couch of down!

To the tyrant's bower, In her beauty's power, She came as a lamb to the lion's lair, As the light bird cleaves the fields of air, And carols blithe and sweet while Treachery weaves its snare.

Think!—what were her pangs as she traced her fate On that changeful monarch's brow of hate? What were the thoughts which, at midnight hour, Throng'd o'er her soul, in yon dungeon tower? Regret, with pencil keen, Retouch'd the deep'ning scene: Gay France, which bade with sunny skies Her careless childhood's pleasures rise; Earl Percy's love, his youthful grace, Her gallant brother's fond embrace; Her stately father's feudal halls, Where proud heraldic annals deck'd the ancient walls

Wrapt in the scaffold's gloom, Brief tenant of that living tomb She stands!—the life-blood chills her heart, And her tender glance from earth does part; But her infant daughter's image fair In the smile of innocence is there, It clings to her soul 'mid its last despair;

And the desolate queen is doom'd to know How far a mother's grief transcends a martyr's woe.

Say! did prophetic light Illume her darkening sight, Painting the future island-queen, Like the fabled bird, all hearts surprising, Bright from blood-stained ashes rising, Wise, energetic, bold, serene? Ah no! the scroll of time Is sealed;—and hope sublime Rests, but on those far heights, which mortals may not climb.

The dying prayer, with trembling fervour, speeds For that false monarch by whose will she bleeds; For him, who, listening on that fatal morn, Hears her death signal o'er the distant lawn From the deep cannon speaking, Then springs to mirth and winds his bugle horn, And riots while her blood is reeking: — For him she prays, in seraph tone, "Oh!—be his sins forgiven! Who raised me to an earthly throne, And sends me now, from prison lone, To be a saint in heaven."