Poems (Stoddard)/The Queen Deposed

by Elizabeth Stoddard

THE QUEEN DEPOSED.

I WAS the queen of Karl, a northern king:
 Amazon Olga, and I rode his Ban,
A stallion in the royal ring
 Who would not bear a man.

And in Ban's saddle did I feel the pains
 For my first-born, the king's sole hope, his heir;
My Karl himself would loose the reins,
 Would take me up the stair.

Low was the murmur of the royal troops
 Below, I saw the tapers' twinkling light;
I heard a cry—"My queen, she droops!"
 Then fell eternal night.

No more was Olga queen for any king;
 The pathway round a throne she could not tread,
Nor triumph in the royal ring—
 The boy she bore was dead!

The cloister hers; she chose the cloak and hood,
 And beads of olive-wood, a pouch for alms;
So begged she, Christ, for thy dear rood,
 Laus Deo sang thy psalms!

Why am I here? This country is my king's;
 The lovely river, wooded hills above;
Old St. Sebastian's church-bell rings—
 There flies the silver dove

That flitted by the day we came to praise
 Our gracious Mary for a granted prayer;
Heralds, trumps, the same gay maze
 Of troops—King Karl is there!

Laus Deo with a child, and with his mate—
 She wins the throne by bringing him a son:
Babes make or mar our queenly fate—
 My woman's life is done.