Classic Poem

FRANCE .

Your cruel mother, fiend of rack and rope,
 Blood-bathed your crown, for she divined your reign
 Would be but brief, a turmoil and a pain;
Foul superstition gave her soul no hope.

Her necromancers drew your horoscope,
 Wooing sad planets, but ne'er sought again,
 The Valois star hung heavy on the wane,
And Catherine's will with Fate dared never cope.

But, while she trembled, what cared you, O king!
 When life was sweet, tho' stained by bloody blots;
You had loud right to love the rosy spring,
 To shun the church, the mass, the Huguenots,
And you were wise to make good cheer, and sing
 The lays of France with your white Queen of Scots.