Friedrich Schiller - Mary Stuart (Act 5 Scene 5) lyrics

Enter MARGARET CURL, bearing a golden cup of wine; she places it hastily upon the table, and leans, pale and trembling, against a chair. MELVIL. How, madam! What has frightened you? KENNEDY. Oh God! BURGOYN. Speak, madam! CURL. What, alas! have I beheld! MELVIL. Come to yourself, and say what you have seen! CURL. As I went down the staircase which conducts To the great hall below, a door stood open; I looked into the chamber, and I saw— Oh heaven! MELVIL. What saw you? CURL. All the walls were hung With black; a spacious scaffold, too, o'erspread With sable cloth, was raised above the floor, And in the middle of the scaffold stood A dreadful sable block! upon it lay A naked, polished axe:—the hall was full Of cruel people, crowding round the scaffold Who, with a horrid thirst for human blood, Seemed waiting for the victim! THE WOMEN. Gracious heaven, Protect our queen! MELVIL. Be calm; the queen approaches.