William Wordsworth

Mary Queen of Scots

Landing at the Mouth of the Derwent, Workington

DEAR to the Loves and to the Graces vowed,
The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore;
And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore
Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed!
And like a star (that, from a heavy cloud
Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,
When a soft summer gale at evening parts
The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud)
She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian seer,
Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand,
With step prelusive to a long array
Of woes and degradations hand in hand,—
Weeping captivity and shuddering fear
Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!