THE WIFE OF FERGUS. A MONODRAMA. Scene, the Palace Court. The Queen speaking from the Battlements. CEASE-cease your torments! spare the sufferers! Scotchmen, not theirs the deed;-the crime was mine, Mine is the glory. Idle threats! I stand Is barr'd beyond your sudden strength to force, Shame on you, Scotchmen, that a woman's hand Your fathers, whom your sons must blush to name ! Ay, ye can threaten me! ye can be brave The cankering moss. Fools! fools! to think that death Is not a thing familiar to my mind! As if I knew not what must consummate Could tempt me to endure the load of life! My lips pronounced the unrecallable vow That made me his, him mine; bear witness, Thou! Stain'd with his blood and mine! my heart was his Holy my marriage vow. Behold me, Thanes! He sought my love, with seeming truth, for one, Time hath not changed that face;-I speak not now, Tell your countrymen, stabs herself. Tell them also, that she felt No guilty fear in death. THE SOLDIER'S WIFE. DACTYLICS. WEARY way-wanderer languid and sick at heart, Sorely thy little one drags by thee bare-footed, Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony, As over thy shoulder thou lookest to hush the babe, Thy husband will never return from the war again, Cold are thy famished babes-God help thee, widowed one. THE WIDOW. SAPPHICS. COLD was the night wind, drifting fast the snow fell, Drear were the downs, more dreary her reflections; Fast o'er the heath a chariot rattled by her; Pity me!" feebly cried the poor night wanderer. Pity me, strangers! lest with cold and hunger Here I should perish. |