Verse > Anthologies > James and Mary Ford, eds. > Every Day in the Year
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James and Mary Ford, eds.  Every Day in the Year.  1902.
 
May 16
Mary Queen of Scots
By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
 
          After the battle of Langside, Mary Queen of Scots fled to England, landing in Derwent on May 16, 1568, and took the fatal step of confiding herself to the protection of Queen Elizabeth.

DEAR to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed,
The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore;
And to the throng, that on the Cumbrian shore
Her landing hailed, how touchingly she bowed!
And like a Star (that from a heavy cloud        5
Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,
When a soft summer gale at even parts
The gloom that did its loveliness enshroud)
She smiled; but Time, the old Saturnian seer,
Sighed on the wing as her foot pressed the strand,        10
With step prelusive to a long array
Of woes and degredations hand in hand—
Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear
Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!
 
 
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