Now Nature hangs her mantle green

On every blooming tree,

And spreads her sheets o' daisies white

Out o'er the grassy lea:

Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,

And glads the azure skies;

But nought can glad the weary wight

That fast in durance lies.

Dueen Mary's Lament.

Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,

Aloft on dewy wing;

The merle, in his noontide bower,

Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild, wi' mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.

Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae ;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang!

I was the queen o' bonny France,
Where happy I hae been;

Fu' lightly rase I in the morn,

As blithe lay down at e'en: And I'm the sov'reign of Scotland, And mony a traitor there;

Yet here I lie in foreign bands,

And never-ending care.

But as for thee, thou false woman!

My sister and my fae,

Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword

That through thy soul shall gae! The weeping blood in woman's breast

Was never known to thee;

Nor the balm that draps on wounds of woe Frae woman's pitying ee.

My son my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine!

And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!

God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,

Or turn their hearts to thee:

And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend, Remember him for me!

Oh! soon to me may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair to me the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!

And in the narrow house o' death

Let winter round me rave;

And the next flowers that deck the spring Bloom on my peaceful grave!