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Pocahontas, and Other Poems/Anna Boleyn

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For other versions of this work, see Anna Boleyn (Sigourney).
Pocahontas, and Other Poems (1841)
by Lydia Sigourney
Anna Boleyn
3932653Pocahontas, and Other Poems — Anna Boleyn1841Lydia Sigourney

ANNA BOLEYN.



On seeing the axe with which Anna Boleyn was beheaded, still preserved in the Tower of London.



  Stern minister of fate severe,
  Who, drunk with beauty's blood,
  Defying time, dost linger here,
  And frown with ruffian visage drear,
  Like beacon on destruction's flood,—
  Say!—when ambition's giddy dream
  First lured thy victim's heart aside,
  Why, like a serpent, didst thou hide,
  'Mid clustering flowers, and robes of pride,
      Thy warning gleam?
  Hadst thou but once arisen in vision dread,
From glory's fearful cliff her startled step had fled.

  Ah! little she reck'd, when St. Edward's crown
   So heavily press'd her tresses fair,
   That, with sleepless wrath, its thorns of care
  Would rankle within her couch of down!
     To the tyrant's bower,
     In her beauty's power,

    She came as a lamb to the lion's lair,
    As the light bird cleaves the fields of air,
And carols blithe and sweet, while Treachery weaves its snare.

  Think!—what were her pangs as she traced her fate
  On that changeful monarch's brow of hate?
  What were the thoughts which, at midnight hour,
  Throng'd o'er her soul, in yon dungeon tower?
      Regret, with pencil keen,
      Retouch'd the deep'ning scene:
      Gay France, which bade with sunny skies
      Her careless childhood's pleasures rise;
      Earl Percy's love, his youthful grace,
      Her gallant brother's fond embrace;
      Her stately father's feudal halls,
Where proud heraldic annals deck'd the ancient walls.

   Wrapt in the scaffold's gloom,
   Brief tenant of that living tomb
  She stands!—the life-blood chills her heart,
  And her tender glance from earth does part;
   But her infant daughter's image fair
   In the smile of innocence is there,
   It clings to her soul 'mid its last despair;
   And the desolate queen is doom'd to know
How far a mother's grief transcends a martyr's woe.
      Say! did prophetic light
      Illume her darkening sight,
   Painting the future island-queen,
  Like the fabled bird, all hearts surprising,
  Bright from blood-stained ashes rising,
   Wise, energic, bold, serene?
   Ah no! the scroll of time
   Is sealed;—and hope sublime
Rests but on those far heights which mortals may not climb.

  The dying prayer, with trembling fervour, speeds
  For that false monarch by whose will she bleeds;
  For him who, listening on that fatal morn,
  Hears her death-signal o'er the distant lawn
    From the deep cannon speaking,
  Then springs to mirth, and winds his bugle horn,
    And riots while her blood is reeking:—
For him she prays, in seraph tone,
    "Oh!—be his sins forgiven!
  Who raised me to an earthly throne,
  And sends me now, from prison lone,
   To be a saint in heaven."