Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/274
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LINLITHGOW PALACE.
From the closed temple of his heart,
Sealed as a sacred spring,
Self must be spurned and set apart
As an unholy thing;
Misconstrued where he loves the best,
Where most he hopes betrayed,
The quenchless watchfire in his breast
Must neither fail nor fade.
Sealed as a sacred spring,
Self must be spurned and set apart
As an unholy thing;
Misconstrued where he loves the best,
Where most he hopes betrayed,
The quenchless watchfire in his breast
Must neither fail nor fade.
And his shall be a holier meed
Than earthly lips may tell:
Not in the end, but in the deed,
Doth truest honour dwell.
His land is one vast monument,
Bearing the record high
Of a spirit with itself content,
And a name that cannot die!
Than earthly lips may tell:
Not in the end, but in the deed,
Doth truest honour dwell.
His land is one vast monument,
Bearing the record high
Of a spirit with itself content,
And a name that cannot die!
For this, with joyous heart I give
Fame, pleasure, love, and life;
Blest; for a cause so high, to live
In ceaseless, hopeless strife;
For this to die, with sword in hand,
Oh, blest and honoured thrice!
God, countrymen, and fatherland,
Accept the sacrifice!
Fame, pleasure, love, and life;
Blest; for a cause so high, to live
In ceaseless, hopeless strife;
For this to die, with sword in hand,
Oh, blest and honoured thrice!
God, countrymen, and fatherland,
Accept the sacrifice!
Linlithgow Palace.
(Birthplace of Mary Stuart.)
How still and deep is the awful sleep
That, like mist on a sea-girt isle,
Broods o'er thy halls and thy crumbling walls,
Thou deserted and lonely pile.
That, like mist on a sea-girt isle,
Broods o'er thy halls and thy crumbling walls,
Thou deserted and lonely pile.
Pale as the gloom of the cheerless tomb
Is the light that shadows thee o'er,
And cold as death seems the murmuring breath
That sweeps by thy turrets so hoar.
Is the light that shadows thee o'er,
And cold as death seems the murmuring breath
That sweeps by thy turrets so hoar.
And yet from thee, all strong and all free,
Long ago rose the sounds of mirth,
The merry laugh that, lightly as chaff,
The winds bore to many a hearth.
Long ago rose the sounds of mirth,
The merry laugh that, lightly as chaff,
The winds bore to many a hearth.