Classic Poem

The last, the fatal, hour is come
That bears my love from me:
I hear the dead note of the drum,
I mark the gallows-tree!

The bell has tolled: it shakes my heart;
The trumpet speaks thy name;
And must my Gilderoy depart
To bear a death of shame?

No bosom trembles for thy doom;
No mourner wipes a tear;
The gallow's foot is all thy tomb,
The sledge is all thy bier.

Oh, Gilderoy! bethought we then
So soon, so sad, to part,
When first in Roslin's lovely glen
You triumphed o'er my heart?

Your locks they glittered to the sheen,
Your hunter garb was trim;
And graceful was the ribbon green
That bound your manly limb.

Ah! little thought I to deplore
Those limbs in fetters bound;
Or hear, upon thy scaffold floor,
The midnight hammer sound.

Ye cruel, cruel, that combined
The guiltless to pursue—
My Gilderoy was ever kind,
He could not injure you!

A long adieu! but where shall fly
Thy widow all forlorn
When every mean and cruel eye
Regards my woe with scorn?

Yes! they will mock thy widow's tears
And hate thine orphan boy;
Alas! his infant beauty wears
The form of Gilderoy.

Then will I seek the dreary mound
That wrapt thy mouldering clay,
And weep and linger on the ground,
And sigh my heart away.