Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GILDEROY, by THOMAS CAMPBELL


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GILDEROY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: The last, the fatal, hour is come
Last Line: And sigh my heart away.
Subject(s): Love


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 toll'd; 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 gallows' 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 triumph'd o'er my heart?

Your locks they glitter'd to the sheen,
Your hunter garb was trim;
And graceful was the riband green
That bound your manly limb!

Ah! little thought I to deplore
Those limbs in fetters bound;
Or hear upon the 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 thy orphan boy;
Alas! his infant beauty wears
The form of Gilderoy.

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





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