XVI.

“When last this ruthful month was come, And in Linlithgow’s holy dome The King, as wont, was praying; While, for his royal father’s soul, The chanters sung, the bells did toll, The bishop mass was saying— For now the year brought round again The day the luckless king was slain— In Katharine’s aisle the monarch knelt, With sackcloth-shirt and iron belt, And eyes with sorrow streaming; Around him, in their stalls of state, The Thistle’s knight-companions sate, Their banners o’er them beaming. I too was there, and, sooth to tell, Bedeafened with the jangling knell, Was watching where the sunbeams fell, Through the stained casement gleaming; But, while I marked what next befell, It seemed as I were dreaming. Stepped from the crowd a ghostly wight, In azure gown, with cincture white; His forehead bald, his head was bare, Down hung at length his yellow hair. Now, mock me not, when, good my lord, I pledged to you my knightly word, That, when I saw his placid grace. His simple majesty of face, His solemn bearing, and his pace So stately gliding on, Seemed to me ne’er did limner paint So just an image of the Saint, Who propped the Virgin in her faint— The loved Apostle John!