POEMS
COMPOSED OR SUGGESTED DURING A TOUR IN THE SUMMER OF 1833
X
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF THE DERWENT, WORKINGTON
I will mention for the sake of the friend who is writing down
these notes, that it was among the fine Scotch firs near
Ambleside, and particularly those near Green Bank, that I have
over and over again paused at the sight of this image. Long may
they stand to afford a like gratification to others!--This wish is
not uncalled for, several of their brethren having already
disappeared.
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
Of pine-tree foliage poised in air, forth darts,
When a soft summer gale at evening 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,
With step prelusive to a long array
Of woes and degradations hand in hand--
Weeping captivity, and shuddering fear
Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay!
NOTE
14 'Mary Queen of Scots landing at Workington.'
"The fears and impatience of Mary were so great," says
Robertson, "that she got into a fisher-boat, and with about twenty
attendants landed at Workington, in Cumberland; and thence she was
conducted with many marks of respect to Carlisle." The apartment
in which the Queen had slept at Workington Hall (where she was
received by Sir Henry Curwen as became her rank and misfortunes)
was long preserved, out of respect to her memory, as she had left
it; and one cannot but regret that some necessary alterations in
the mansion could not be effected without its destruction.
