Tenderly greet the dear land of my youth!
Here I am captive! oppressed by my foes,
No other than you may carry my woes.
Free through the ether your pathway is seen,
Ye own not the power of this tyrant queen.
KENNEDY.
Alas! dear lady! You're beside yourself,
This long-lost, long-sought freedom makes you rave.
MARY.
Yonder's a fisher returning to his home;
Poor though it be, would he lend me his wherry,
Quick to congenial shores would I ferry.
Spare is his trade, and labor's his doom;
Rich would I freight his vessel with treasure;
Such a draught should be his as he never had seen;
Wealth should he find in his nets without measure,
Would he but rescue a poor captive queen.
KENNEDY.
Fond, fruitless wishes! See you not from far
How we are followed by observing spies?
A dismal, barbarous prohibition scares
Each sympathetic being from our path.
MARY.
No, gentle Hannah! Trust me, not in vain
My prison gates are opened. This small grace
Is harbinger of greater happiness.
No! I mistake not; 'tis the active hand
Of love to which I owe this kind indulgence.
I recognize in this the mighty arm
Of Leicester. They will by degrees expand
My prison; will accustom me, through small,
To greater liberty, until at last
I shall behold the face of him whose hand
Will dash my fetters off, and that forever.
KENNEDY.
Oh, my dear queen! I cannot reconcile
These contradictions. 'Twas but yesterday
That they announced your death, and all at once,
To-day, you have such liberty. Their chains
Are also loosed, as I have oft been told,
Whom everlasting liberty awaits.
[Hunting horns at a distance.
MARY.
Hear'st then the bugle, so blithely resounding?
Hear'st thou its echoes through wood and through plain?
Oh, might I now, on my nimble steed bounding,
Join with the jocund, the frolicsome train.
[Hunting horns again heard.
Again! Oh, this sad and this pleasing remembrance!
These are the sounds which, so sprightly and clear,
Oft, when with music the hounds and the horn
So cheerfully welcomed the break of the morn,
On the heaths of the Highlands delighted my ear.
SCENE II.
Enter PAULET.
PAULET.
Well, have I acted right at last, my lady?
Do I for once, at least, deserve your thanks?
MARY.
How! Do I owe this favor, sir, to you?
PAULET.
Why not to me? I visited the court,
And gave the queen your letter.
MARY.
Did you give it?
In very truth did you deliver it?
And is this freedom which I now enjoy
The happy consequence?
PAULET (significantly).
Nor that alone;
Prepare yourself to see a greater still.
MARY.
A greater still! What do you mean by that?
PAULET.
You heard the bugle-horns?
MARY (starting back with foreboding apprehension).
You frighten me.
