Poem by Thomas Campbell

Gilderoy

THE LAST, the fatal hour is come,
  That bears my love from me:
I hear the dead note of the drum,
  I mark the gallows’ tree!

The bell has tolled; it shakes my heart;
  The trumpet speaks thy name;
And must my Gilderoy depart
  To bear a death of shame?

No bosom trembles for thy doom,
  No mourner wipes a tear;
The gallows’ foot is all thy tomb,
  The sledge is all thy bier.

O Gilderoy! bethought we then
  So soon, so sad to part,
When first in Roslin’s lovely glen
  You triumphed o’er my heart?

Your locks they glittered to the sheen,
  Your hunter garb was trim;
And graceful was the ribbon green
  That bound your manly limb!

Ah! little thought I to deplore
  Those limbs in fetters bound;
Or hear, upon the scaffold floor,
  The midnight hammer sound.

Ye cruel, cruel, that combined
  The guiltless to pursue;
My Gilderoy was ever kind,
  He could not injure you!

A long adieu! but where shall fly
  Thy widow all forlorn,
When every mean and cruel eye
  Regards my woe with scorn?

Yes! they will mock thy widow’s tears,
  And hate thine orphan boy;
Alas! his infant beauty wears
  The form of Gilderoy.

Then will I seek the dreary mound
  That wraps thy mouldering clay,
And weep and linger on the ground,
  And sigh my heart away.

1. Napoleon and the British Sailor
2. Field Flowers
3. The Exile of Erin
4. Poland
5. O’Connor’s Child; Or, the Flower of Love Lies Bleeding

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