Douglas, in the moonless night --_Muffled oars on blue Loch Leven!_-- Took her hand, a flake of white --_Beauty slides the bolts of heaven._-- Little white hand, like a flake of snow, When they saw it, his Highland crew Swung together and murmured low, "Douglas, wilt _thou_ die then, too?" And the pine trees whispered, weeping, "_Douglas, Douglas, tender and true!_ Little white hand like a tender moonbeam, soon shall you set the broadswords leaping, It is the Queen, the Queen!" they whispered, watching her soar to the saddle anew. "There will be trumpets blown in the mountains, a mist of blood on the heather, and weeping, Weeping, weeping, and _thou_, too, dead for her, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true."
Carry the queenly lass along! --_Cold she lies, cold and dead,_-- She whose laughter was a song, --_Lapped around with sheets of lead!_-- She whose blood was wine of the South, --_Light her down to a couch of clay!_-- And a royal rose her mouth, And her body made of may! --Lift your torches, weeping, weeping, Light her down to a couch of clay. They should have left her in her vineyards, left her heart to her land's own keeping, Left her white breast room to breathe, and left her light foot free to dance!
Hush! Between the solemn pinewoods, carry the lovely lady sleeping, Out of the cold grey Northern mists, with banner and scutcheon, plume, and lance, Carry her southward, palled in purple, weeping, weeping, weeping, weeping,-- _O, ma patrie, La plus chérie, Adieu, plaisant pays de France!_
Well, sirs, that dark tide rose within my brain! I snatched his keys and flung them over the hedge, Then flung myself down on a bank of ferns And wept and wept and wept. It puzzled him. Perchance he feared my mind was going and yet, O, sirs, if you consider it rightly now, With all those ages knocking at his doors, With all that custom clamouring for his care, Is it so strange a grave-digger should weep? Well--he was kind enough and heaped my plate That night at supper. But I could never dig my graves at ease In Peterborough Churchyard. So I came To London--to St. Mary Magdalen's. And thus, I chanced to drink my ale one night Here in the Mermaid Inn. 'Twas All Souls' Eve, And, on that bench, where master Ford now sits Was master Shakespeare-- Well, the lights burned low, And just like master Ford to-night he leaned Suddenly forward. 'Timothy,' he said, 'That's a most marvellous ruby!' My blood froze! I stretched my hand out bare as it was born; And he said nothing, only looked at me. Then, seeing my pipe was empty, he bade me fill And lit it for me. Peach, the astrologer, Was living then; and that same night I went And told him all my trouble about this ring. He took my hand in his, and held it--thus-- Then looked into my face and said this rhyme:--