Lady Jane Grey

So early wise! Beauty hath been to theeNo traitor-friend, to steal the keyOf knowledge from thy mind,Making thee gorgeous to the eye,Flaunting and flushed with vanity,Yet inly blind.

Hark! the hunting-bugle sounds,Thy father's park is gay,Stately nobles cheer the hounds,Soft hands the coursers sway,Haste to the sport, away! away!Youth, and mirth, and love are there,Lingerest thou, fairest of the fair,In thy lone chamber to exploreAncient Plato's classic lore?Old Roger Ascham's gazeIs fix'd on thee with fond amaze;Doubtless the sage doth marvel deep,That for philosophy divineA lady could declineThe pleasure 'mid yon pageant-train to sweep,The glory o'er some five-barr'd gate to leap,And in the toil of reading GreekWhich many a student flies,Find more entrancing rhetoricThan Fashion's page supplies.

Ah sweet Enthusiast! happier far for theeHad'st thou thy musing intellectual joy,Thro' life indulg'd without alloy,In solitary sanctity,Nor dar'd Ambition's fearful shrift,Nor laid thy shrinking hand on Edward's fatal gift.

The Crown! The Crown! It sparkles on thy brow,I see Northumberland with joy elate,And lo! thy haughty sire doth bowHonoring thy high estate,She too, of royal Tudor's line,Who at her early bridal shoneResplendent on the Gallic throneHumbleth her knee to thine,She, the austerely beautiful, whose eyeCheck'd thy timid infancyUntil thy heart's first buds folded their leaves to die,Homage to her meek daughter pays,Yet, sooth to say, one fond embrace,One kiss, such as the peasant-mother givesWhen on its evening bed her child she lays,Had dearer been to thee, than all their courtly phrase.

The Tower! The Tower! thou bright-hair'd beauteous one!There, where the captive's breathHad sigh'd itself in bitterness away,Where iron nerves have wither'd one by one,And the sick eye shut from the glorious sunHath grop'd o'er those grim walls till idiocyMade life like death,There must thy resting be?

Not long! Not long! What savage band'Neath thy grated window bearsThe headless form, the lifeless handOf him, the magic of whose love could charm away thy cares?Guilford! thy husband! yet the gushing tearScarce flows to mourn his fate severe,Thy pious thought doth riseTo those unclouded skies,Where he, amid the angel trainDoth for thy coming wait, to part no more again.

The Scaffold! Must it be! Stern England's QueenHast thou such doom decreed?Dwells Draco's soul beneath a woman's mien?Must guileless youth and peerless beauty bleed?Away! Away! I will not see the deed!Fresh drops of crimson stain the new-fall'n snow,The wintry winds wail fitfully and low;—But the meek victim is not there,Far from this troubled scene,High o'er the tyrant Queen,She finds that amaranthine crown, which sinless seraphs wear.