I have seen A portrait of this Mary This thin queen With anxious eyes and narrow tight-sealed lips Holding a rose in her sharp fingertips. She has done all she can in hopes to please Her Spanish king lagging across the seas: Has she not given him her withered heart, That fiery pinch of dust? Is not her will Limp in his hands? Philip has but to ask And Mary, Queen of England, must fulfill. She woos him with a parchment tenderness; Her dangerous sister at his word she spares, And with the hangman's sword and hempen rope From English blood a love-knot she prepares -- And sends this portrait where one reads the pains Of Tudor blood turned acid in the veins. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A BARD'S EPITAPH by ROBERT BURNS LAMENT FOR CULLODEN by ROBERT BURNS THE BARON'S LAST BANQUET by ALBERT GORTON GREENE THE LAY OF ST. ODILLE by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM S. MATTHIAS by JOSEPH BEAUMONT |