• “And yet a year, in the Links of Forth,
• As a wanderer without rest,
• Thou cam'st with both thine arms i' the shroud
• That clung high up thy breast.

• “And in this hour I find thee here,
• And well mine eyes may note
• That the winding-sheet hath passed thy breast
• 190And risen around thy throat.

• “And when I meet thee again, O King,
• That of death hast such sore drouth,—
• Except thou turn again on this shore,—
• The winding-sheet shall have moved once more
• And covered thine eyes and mouth.

• “O King, whom poor men bless for their King,
• Of thy fate be not so fain;
• But these my words for God's message take,
• And turn thy steed, O King, for her sake
• 200Who rides beside thy rein!”

• While the woman spoke, the King's horse reared
• As if it would breast the sea,
• And the Queen turned pale as she heard on the gale
• The voice die dolorously.

• When the woman ceased, the steed was still,
• But the King gazed on her yet,
• And in silence save for the wail of the sea
• His eyes and her eyes met.

• At last he said:—“God's ways are His own;
• 210Man is but shadow and dust.
• Last night I prayed by His altar-stone;
• To-night I wend to the Feast of His Son;
• And in Him I set my trust.

• “I have held my people in sacred charge,
• And have not feared the sting
• Of proud men's hate,—to His will resign'd
• Who has but one same death for a hind
• And one same death for a King.

• “And if God in His wisdom have brought close
• 220The day when I must die,
• That day by water or fire or air
• My feet shall fall in the destined snare
• Wherever my road may lie.

• “What man can say but the Fiend hath set
• Thy sorcery on my path,
• My heart with the fear of death to fill,
• And turn me against God's very will
• To sink in His burning wrath?”

• The woman stood as the train rode past,
• 230And moved nor limb nor eye;
• And when we were shipped, we saw her there
• Still standing against the sky.

• As the ship made way, the moon once more
• Sank slow in her rising pall;
• And I thought of the shrouded wraith of the King,
• And I said, “The Heavens know all.”

• And now, ye lasses, must ye hear
• How my name is Kate Barlass:—
• But a little thing, when all the tale
• 240Is told of the weary mass
• Of crime and woe which in Scotland's realm
• God's will let come to pass.

• 'Twas in the Charterhouse of Perth
• That the King and all his Court
• Were met, the Christmas Feast being done,
• For solace and disport.

• 'Twas a wind-wild eve in February,
• And against the casement-pane
• The branches smote like summoning hands
• 250And muttered the driving rain.

• And when the wind swooped over the lift
• And made the whole heaven frown,
• It seemed a grip was laid on the walls
• To tug the housetop down.

• And the Queen was there, more stately fair
• Than a lily in garden set;
• And the King was loth to stir from her side;
• For as on the day when she was his bride,
• Even so he loved her yet.

• 260And the Earl of Athole, the King's false friend,
• Sat with him at the board;
• And Robert Stuart the chamberlain
• Who had sold his sovereign Lord.

• Yet the traitor Christopher Chaumber there
• Would fain have told him all,
• And vainly four times that night he strove
• To reach the King through the hall.

• But the wine is bright at the goblet's brim
• Though the poison lurk beneath;
• 270And the apples still are red on the tree
• Within whose shade may the adder be
• That shall turn thy life to death.

• There was a knight of the King's fast friends
• Whom he called the King of Love;
• And to such bright cheer and courtesy
• That name might best behove.

• And the King and Queen both loved him well
• For his gentle knightliness;
• And with him the King, as that eve wore on,
• 280Was playing at the chess.

• And the King said, (for he thought to jest
• And soothe the Queen thereby;)—
• “In a book 'tis writ that this same year
• A King shall in Scotland die.

• “And I have pondered the matter o'er,
• And this have I found, Sir Hugh,—
• There are but two Kings on Scotish ground,
• And those Kings are I and you.

• “Worship, ye lovers, on this May:
• Of bliss your kalends are begun:
• Sing with us, Away, Winter, away!
• Come, Summer, the sweet season and sun!
• 320 Awake for shame,—your heaven is won,—
• And amorously your heads lift all:
• Thank Love, that you to his grace doth call!”

• But when he bent to the Queen, and sang
• The speech whose praise was hers,
• It seemed his voice was the voice of the Spring
• And the voice of the bygone years.

• “The fairest and the freshest flower
• That ever I saw before that hour,
• The which o' the sudden made to start
• 330 The blood of my body to my heart.

---

• Ah sweet, are ye a worldly creature
• Or heavenly thing in form of nature?”

• And the song was long, and richly stored
• With wonder and beauteous things;
• And the harp was tuned to every change
• Of minstrel ministerings;
• But when he spoke of the Queen at the last,
• Its strings were his own heart-strings.

• “Unworthy but only of her grace,
• 340 Upon Love's rock that's easy and sure,
• In guerdon of all my lovè's space
• She took me her humble creäture.
• Thus fell my blissful aventure
• In youth of love that from day to day
• Flowereth aye new, and further I say.

• “To reckon all the circumstance
• As it happed when lessen gan my sore,
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• Of my rancour and woful chance,
• It were too long,—I have done therefor.
• 350 And of this flower I say no more
• But unto my help her heart hath tended
• And even from death her man defended.”

• “Aye, even from death,” to myself I said;
• For I thought of the day when she
• Had borne him the news, at Roxbro' siege,
• Of the fell confederacy.

• But Death even then took aim as he sang
• With an arrow deadly bright;
• And the grinning skull lurked grimly aloof,
• 360And the wings were spread far over the roof
• More dark than the winter night.

• Yet truly along the amorous song
• Of Love's high pomp and state,
• There were words of Fortune's trackless doom
• And the dreadful face of Fate.

• And oft have I heard again in dreams
• The voice of dire appeal
• In which the King then sang of the pit
• That is under Fortune's wheel.

• 370 “And under the wheel beheld I there
• An ugly Pit as deep as hell,
• That to behold I quaked for fear:
• And this I heard, that who therein fell
• Came no more up, tidings to tell:
• Whereat, astound of the fearful sight,
• I wist not what to do for fright.”

• And oft has my thought called up again
• These words of the changeful song:—
• “Wist thou thy pain and thy travàil
• 380 To come, well might'st thou weep and wail!”
• And our wail, O God! is long.

• But the song's end was all of his love;
• And well his heart was grac'd
• With her smiling lips and her tear-bright eyes
• As his arm went round her waist.

• And on the swell of her long fair throat
• Close clung the necklet-chain
• As he bent her pearl-tir'd head aside,
• And in the warmth of his love and pride
• 390He kissed her lips full fain.

• And her true face was a rosy red,
• The very red of the rose
• That, couched on the happy garden-bed,
• In the summer sunlight glows.

• And all the wondrous things of love
• That sang so sweet through the song
• Were in the look that met in their eyes,
• And the look was deep and long.

• 'Twas then a knock came at the outer gate,
• 400And the usher sought the King.
• “The woman you met by the Scotish Sea,
• My Liege, would tell you a thing;
• And she says that her present need for speech
• Will bear no gainsaying.”