• I Catherine am a Douglas born,
• A name to all Scots dear;
• And Kate Barlass they've called me now
• Through many a waning year.

• This old arm's withered now. 'Twas once
• Most deft 'mong maidens all
• To rein the steed, to wing the shaft,
• To smite the palm-play ball.

• In hall adown the close-linked dance
• 10It has shone most white and fair;
• It has been the rest for a true lord's head,
• And many a sweet babe's nursing-bed,
• And the bar to a King's chambère.

• Aye, lasses, draw round Kate Barlass,
• And hark with bated breath
• How good King James, King Robert's son,
• Was foully done to death.

• Through all the days of his gallant youth
• The princely James was pent,
• 20By his friends at first and then by his foes,
• In long imprisonment.

• For the elder Prince, the kingdom's heir,
• By treason's murderous brood
• Was slain; and the father quaked for the child
• With the royal mortal blood.

• I' the Bass Rock fort, by his father's care,
• Was his childhood's life assured;
• And Henry the subtle Bolingbroke,
• Proud England's King, 'neath the southern yoke
• 30His youth for long years immured.

• Yet in all things meet for a kingly man
• Himself did he approve;
• And the nightingale through his prison-wall
• Taught him both lore and love.

• For once, when the bird's song drew him close
• To the opened window-pane,
• In her bowers beneath a lady stood,
• A light of life to his sorrowful mood,
• Like a lily amid the rain.

• 40And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note,
• He framed a sweeter Song,
• More sweet than ever a poet's heart
• Gave yet to the English tongue.

• She was a lady of royal blood;
• And when, past sorrow and teen,
• He stood where still through his crownless years
• His Scotish realm had been,
• At Scone were the happy lovers crowned,
• A heart-wed King and Queen.

• 50But the bird may fall from the bough of youth,
• And song be turned to moan,
• And Love's storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate,
• When the tempest-waves of a troubled State
• Are beating against a throne.

• Yet well they loved; and the god of Love,
• Whom well the King had sung,
• Might find on the earth no truer hearts
• His lowliest swains among.

• From the days when first she rode abroad
• 60With Scotish maids in her train,
• I Catherine Douglas won the trust
• Of my mistress sweet Queen Jane.

• And oft she sighed, “To be born a King!”
• And oft along the way
• When she saw the homely lovers pass
• She has said, “Alack the day!”

• Years waned,—the loving and toiling years:
• Till England's wrong renewed
• Drove James, by outrage cast on his crown,
• 70To the open field of feud.

• 'Twas when the King and his host were met
• At the leaguer of Roxbro' hold,
• The Queen o' the sudden sought his camp
• With a tale of dread to be told.

• And she showed him a secret letter writ
• That spoke of treasonous strife,
• And how a band of his noblest lords
• Were sworn to take his life.

• “And it may be here or it may be there,
• 80In the camp or the court,” she said:
• “But for my sake come to your people's arms
• And guard your royal head.”

• Quoth he, “'Tis the fifteenth day of the siege,
• And the castle's nigh to yield.”
• “O face your foes on your throne,” she cried,
• “And show the power you wield;
• And under your Scotish people's love
• You shall sit as under your shield.”

• At the fair Queen's side I stood that day
• 90When he bade them raise the siege,
• And back to his Court he sped to know
• How the lords would meet their Liege.

• But when he summoned his Parliament,
• The louring brows hung round,
• Like clouds that circle the mountain-head
• Ere the first low thunders sound.

• For he had tamed the nobles' lust
• And curbed their power and pride,
• And reached out an arm to right the poor
• 100Through Scotland far and wide;
• And many a lordly wrong-doer
• By the headsman's axe had died.

• 'Twas then upspoke Sir Robert Græme,
• The bold o'ermastering man:—
• “O King, in the name of your Three Estates
• I set you under their ban!

• “For, as your lords made oath to you
• Of service and fealty,
• Even in like wise you pledged your oath
• 110Their faithful sire to be:—

• “Yet all we here that are nobly sprung
• Have mourned dear kith and kin
• Since first for the Scotish Barons' curse
• Did your bloody rule begin.”

• With that he laid his hands on his King:—
• “Is this not so, my lords?”
• But of all who had sworn to league with him
• Not one spake back to his words.

• Quoth the King:—“Thou speak'st but for one
• Estate,
• 120Nor doth it avow thy gage.
• Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence!”
• The Græme fired dark with rage:—
• “Who works for lesser men than himself,
• He earns but a witless wage!”

• But soon from the dungeon where he lay
• He won by privy plots,
• And forth he fled with a price on his head
• To the country of the Wild Scots.

• And word there came from Sir Robert Græme
• 130To the King at Edinbro':—
• “No Liege of mine thou art; but I see
• From this day forth alone in thee
• God's creature, my mortal foe.

• “Through thee are my wife and children lost,
• My heritage and lands;
• And when my God shall show me a way,
• Thyself my mortal foe will I slay
• With these my proper hands.”

• Against the coming of Christmastide
• 140That year the King bade call
• I' the Black Friars' Charterhouse of Perth
• A solemn festival.

• And we of his household rode with him
• In a close-ranked company;
• But not till the sun had sunk from his throne
• Did we reach the Scotish Sea.

• That eve was clenched for a boding storm,
• 'Neath a toilsome moon half seen;
• The cloud stooped low and the surf rose high;
• 150And where there was a line of the sky,
• Wild wings loomed dark between.

• And on a rock of the black beach-side,
• By the veiled moon dimly lit,
• There was something seemed to heave with life
• As the King drew nigh to it.

• And was it only the tossing ferns
• Or brake of the waste sea-wold?
• Or was it an eagle bent to the blast?
• When near we came, we knew it at last
• 160For a woman tattered and old.

• But it seemed as though by a fire within
• Her writhen limbs were wrung;
• And as soon as the King was close to her,
• She stood up gaunt and strong.

• 'Twas then the moon sailed clear of the rack
• On high in her hollow dome;
• And still as aloft with hoary crest
• Each clamorous wave rang home,
• Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed
• 170Amid the champing foam.

• And the woman held his eyes with her eyes:—
• “O King, thou art come at last;
• But thy wraith has haunted the Scotish Sea
• To my sight for four years past.

• “Four years it is since first I met,
• 'Twixt the Duchray and the Dhu,
• A shape whose feet clung close in a shroud,
• And that shape for thine I knew.

• “A year again, and on Inchkeith Isle
• 180I saw thee pass in the breeze,
• With the cerecloth risen above thy feet
• And wound about thy knees.