NOW Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o daisies white
Out oer 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.
Now laverocks wake the merry morn
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bowr,
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 hawthorns 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 bonie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu lightly raise I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at een:
And Im the sovreign 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 thro thy soul shall gae;
The weeping blood in womans breast
Was never known to thee;
Nor th balm that draps on wounds of woe
Frae womans pitying ee.
My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That neer wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mothers faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:
And where thou meetst thy mothers friend,
Remember him for me!
O! soon, to me, may Summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair to me the Autumn winds
Wave oer the yellow corn?
And, in the narrow house of death,
Let Winter round me rave;
And the next flowrs that deck the Spring,
Bloom on my peaceful grave!
