Lament Of Mary, Queen Of Scots, On The Approach Of Spring

Now nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o’ daisies white
Out o’er the grassy lea:
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.

Now laverocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bow’r,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis mild wi’ mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi’ care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae:
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their weet amang;
But I, the Queen of a’ Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang.

I was the Queen o’ bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu’ lightly rase I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e’en:
And I’m the overeign of Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,
And never-ending care.

But a for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae
Grim vengeance yet shall whet a word
That thro’ thy soul shall gae:
The weeping blood in woman’s breast
Was never known to thee;
Nor th’ balm that drap on wound of woe
Frae woman’s pitying ee.

My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne’er wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother’s faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:
And where thou meet’st thy mother’s friend,
Remember him for me!

O! soon, to me, may summer-suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o’er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o’ death
Let winter round me rave;
And the next flow’rs that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave!