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.