1700-1702
Oft in midnight visions
Ghostly by my bed
Stands a Father's image,
Pale discrowned head:--
--I forsook thee, Father!
Was no child to thee!
Child-forsaken Mother,
Now 'tis so with me.
Oft I see the brother,
Baby born to woe,
Crouching by the church-wall
From the bloodhound-foe.
Evil crown'd of evil,
Heritage of strife!
Mine, an heirless sceptre:
His, an exile life!
--O my vanish'd darlings,
From the cradle torn!
Dewdrop lives, that never
Saw their second morn!
Buds that fell untimely,--
Till one blossom grew;
As I watch'd its beauty,
Fading whilst it blew.
Thou wert more to me, Love,
More than words can tell:
All my remnant sunshine
Died in one farewell.
Midnight-mirk before me
Now my life goes by,
For the baby faces
As in vain I cry.
O the little footsteps
On the nursery floor!
Lispings light and laughter
I shall hear no more!
Eyes that gleam'd at waking
Through their silken bars;
Starlike eyes of children,
Now beyond the stars!
Where the murder'd Mary
Waits the rising sign,
They are laid in darkness,
Little lambs of mine.
Only this can comfort:
Safe from earthly harms
Christ the Saviour holds them
In His loving arms:--
Spring eternal round Him,
Roses ever fair:--
Will His mercy set them
All beside me there?
Will their Angels guide me
Through the golden gate?
--Wait a little, children!
Mother, too, must wait!
_I forsook thee_; Marlborough, desirous to widen the breach between Anne
and William III, influenced her to write to her Father, 'supplicating his
forgiveness, and professing repentance for the part she had taken.'
_Now 'tis so_; Anne 'was said to attribute the death of her children to
the part she had taken in dethroning her father:' (Lecky, _History of the
Eighteenth Century_).
_The brother_; The infant son of James, known afterwards as the 'Old
Pretender,' or as James III. He was carried as an infant from the Palace
(Dec. 1688) to Lambeth, where he was in great peril of discovery. The
story is picturesquely told by Macaulay.
_One blossom_; The Duke of Gloucester, who grew up to eleven years, dying
in July 1700. After his death Anne signed, in private letters, 'your
unfortunate' friend.
Anne's character, says the candid Lecky, 'though somewhat peevish and
very obstinate, was pure, generous, simple, and affectionate; and she
displayed, under bereavements far more numerous than fall to the share of
most, a touching piety that endeared her to her people.'
_Where the murder'd Mary_; 'Above and around, in every direction,' says
Dean Stanley, describing the vault beneath the monument of Mary of
Scotland in Henry the Seventh's Chapel,--'crushing by the accumulated
weight of their small coffins the receptacles of the illustrious dust
beneath, lie the eighteen children of Queen Anne, dying in infancy or
stillborn, ending with William Duke of Gloucester, the last hope of the
race:' (_Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, ch. iii).