Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
Loch Leven Castle
By Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791–1865)T
Holding thy vigil lone,
Amid the heath-clad isle,
Where Leven’s waters moan,
Show me the prison-tower
Of Scotland’s fairest queen,
Who, reared in Gallia’s royal bower,
Endured thy tyrant spleen.
Her tortured bosom poured,
The tears that dimmed those eyes
Which rival kings adored,
Unfold her darkened fate,
A haughty brother’s scorn,
Of her own native realm, the hate,
Of maddened love, the thorn.
Still cleaves yon silent tide,
Its glimmering torchlights float
In mingled fear and pride;
Young Douglas wildly steers,
His throbbing heart beats high,
As freedom’s long-lost radiance cheers
The rescued prisoner’s eye.
Where axe and scaffold gleam,
He hears no stifled wail,
He marks no life-blood stream.
With ill-dissembled mien,
Who wields yon vengeful rod?
Who made thee judge, thou English queen?
Her sins are with her God.
The owl her shriek repeats,
And all the tissued spell
Of wildering fancy fleets;
Lochleven’s ruined towers
Once more the moonbeams flout,
And tangled herbage chokes those bowers
Whence the rich harp breathed out.
Expands like mirror clear,
With emerald islets drest,
Each in its hermit-sphere;
Yet from those fair retreats
Do mournful memories flow,
And every murmuring shade repeats
Mary of Scotland’s woe.