1897
I stand in Edinburgh, in Holyrood,
Where Scotland's Mary flaunted; iron Knox came,
With cavernous eyes and words of prophet-flame,
And broke her soul as bonds of brittle wood:—
And all stern Scotland's evil and her good,
Her austere ghosts, her souls of fiery shame,
Her adamantine pa**ions none could tame,
Arise anew and drip in Rizzio's blood.
Here in these walls, these guilty corridors,
Beside that bed where Elizabeth's eyes look down;—
Across the centuries with their fading band
Of angry years of Presbyterian frown,—
I only know these tears of weird remorse;
The woman rules. All else is shifting sand.