Remembering Delaroche's Lady Jane

A blindfold hued the eggshell of her dress:

Some hands held heads, fresh-washed with many tears…

For she was six and ten, no more, no less.

A woman opened up her hand to bless

the white neck fed into the deadly slot.

The one of six and ten, no more, no less.

A word slipped through her lips in shy confess-

ion: heaven stopped its ears, as curtain closed

across her sixteen years, no more, no less.

She sank towards the dread unwaking rest:

A pent life squirted from the steel cut

in one red leap of homicidal zest.

My wan White one! Dark Death such soft address

has never known. Curled virgin. Lamb, unroyaled.

You are six and ten no more, no less,

Gagged Egret. Phantom Weapon in whose swing

I see what havoc heaps her like a snow.

My eyes are free to weep I must confess

I am not six and ten. Much more. Not less