Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON A PORTRAIT OF MARY TUDOR IN PRADO, by ELIZABETH JANE COATSWORTH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON A PORTRAIT OF MARY TUDOR IN PRADO, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I have seen / a portrait of this mary
Last Line: Of tudor blood turned acid in the veins.
Alternate Author Name(s): Beston, Henry, Mrs.
Subject(s): Courts & Courtiers; Mary I, Queen Of England (1516-1568); Royal Court Life; Royalty; Kings; Queens


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.





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