THE last, the fatal hour is come, That bears my love from me: I hear the dead note of the drum, I mark the gallows' tree! The bell has toll'd; it shakes my heart; The trumpet speaks thy name; And must my Gilderoy depart To bear a death of shame? No bosom trembles for thy doom; No mourner wipes a tear; The gallows' foot is all thy tomb, The sledge is all thy bier. Oh, Gilderoy! bethought we then So soon, so sad to part, When first in Roslin's lovely glen You triumph'd o'er my heart? Your locks they glitter'd to the sheen, Your hunter garb was trim; And graceful was the riband green That bound your manly limb! Ah! little thought I to deplore Those limbs in fetters bound; Or hear upon the scaffold floor, The midnight hammer sound. Ye cruel, cruel, that combined The guiltless to pursue; My Gilderoy was ever kind, He could not injure you. A long adieu! but where shall fly Thy widow all forlorn, When every mean and cruel eye Regards my woe with scorn? Yes they will mock thy widow's tears. And hate thy orphan boy; Alas! his infant beauty wears The form of Gilderoy. Then will I seek the dreary mound That wraps thy mouldering clay, And weep and linger on the ground, And sigh my heart away. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A MODEST WIT by SELLECK OSBORNE MY LIFE by HENRY DAVID THOREAU MORNING STAR by HARRIET R. BEAN WASTE GROUND by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN BLANDID'S SONG, FR. THE CRIER BY NIGHT by GORDON BOTTOMLEY SEARCHLIGHTS by MILDRED SUTTON BRENEMAN |