Poetry - Lyrics & Quotes

BOOK LAUNCH DETAILS & TICKETS

Mary, Queen of Scots

As performed in theatre shows in the UK and the USA as part of Bernard Ilsley’s stage mediumship.

The poem is also included in both Divinus Spiritus and Ultra Velum.

What is this place I find myself 
Condemned, it seems, for some great sin?
From pillar to post, from room to room,
A queen confined within her gloom.

How I long to wander free,
To choose the path that calls to me;
Not dressed in robes considered fine,
But free to walk beyond a straight line.

Lock me away and turn the key,
What now, I wonder, waits for me?
I am Mary, Queen of Scots, you see,
Yet even a queen may long to be free.

I sit and sew each careful seam,
And lose myself within a dream;
Beyond these walls, beyond this time,
I walk a path that does not rhyme
With prison walls and watchful eyes,
But wanders freely beneath the skies.

I know one day my life must end,
And from this world my soul will ascend;
I shall leave behind this earthly shrine,
And finally walk beyond a straight line.

Tonight I return to this ancient place,
Once filled with beauty, now marked by disgrace;
A place I knew through sorrow and fear,
Yet strangely tonight I feel no tear.

For now I am free, no chains remain,
No locked doors hold me here again;
No guard can stop me, no bell can chime,
And I can walk beyond a straight line.

But suddenly there, before my eyes,
A gathering forms and memories rise;
The fear returns from another time,
Like distant bells beginning to chime.

Surely my Queen will not deceive me?
Surely my God will still receive me?
For madness lives in hearts and minds,
And sorrow follows close behind.

Yet through the darkness I still see
The light of God awaiting me;
And though the hour may bring me sadness,
Within my soul I shall know gladness.

For what I believed has now come true,
And tonight I return to speak with you;
To tell you death is not the end,
But merely a road around the bend.

I wake from the dream and sew my last seam,
Still holding tightly to that dream;
And though to the block I bowed my head,
I knew that my spirit could never be dead.

For flesh may fall and kingdoms decline,
But the soul is not bound by place or time;
No prison wall, no royal design
Can force the spirit to walk a straight line.

I am Mary, Queen of Scots, you see,
And at long last my soul is free;
Beyond the walls, beyond all time,
I walk forever —
beyond the straight line.

Hear the poem at Chatsworth

Bernard will perform “Mary, Queen of Scots” live at the Ultra Velum book launch at Chatsworth House on Friday 16 October 2026.

BOOK LAUNCH DETAILS & TICKETS

Private Ronnie Evans

Inspired by the stories my grandmother told me about the First and Second World Wars, this poem imagines a young soldier returning to the Birmingham streets of his childhood. As the familiar world has changed around him, he meets an old friend and begins to understand what has happened.

Private Ronnie Evans

I am seventeen, a boy of war,
A soldier now forevermore.
Private Ronald A. Evans my name,
Numbered in silence, lost to flame.

But tell me now, I ask the sky,
Where have all the horses gone, and why?
I promised Mum I’d make it home,
Yet here I stand, alone, alone.

Manor Road, house seventy-one,
Still stands beneath a faded sun.
I knock upon the weathered door,
A stranger answers — nothing more.

I smile and ask with hope in hand,
‘Is my mother still in this land?’
They look at me, confused and still,
Their words escape me — cold and shrill.

Where is the life I used to know?
The fields where childhood used to flow?
I walk the road I once ran free,
Barefoot, wild, eternally.

We had no riches, had no gold,
But stories and laughter — wealth untold.
We ran through days both thin and bare,
Yet somehow, joy was always there.

Old Mr Jones, with one leg to stand,
Would shout across the Horse Road land,
‘Get off the road, you little swine!’
We’d laugh and cross that same old line.

But where have all the horses gone?
The forge, the stable — both are gone.
Now roaring engines fill the air,
And smoke is hanging everywhere.

The blacksmith’s fire has long been cold,
The tales of old no longer told.
Brick replaces wooden gate,
Everything has changed with fate.

Who are these people passing by,
With glowing boxes held up high?
They never see me standing here,
Or feel the weight of vanished years.

Everyone I ever knew
Has slipped away like morning dew.
And then I hear a voice so near —
A voice I thought I’d never hear.

‘About time, Ronnie,’ soft and clear.
I turn — and John is standing near.
Private Davis, by my side,
My brother through the battle’s tide.

He speaks of homes now blown away,
Of wars that came in later days.
Of chimney stones that flew so far,
Across a broken world at war.

‘But John,’ I ask, ‘how can this be?
I saw you fall in front of me.’
‘I saw you too,’ he gently said,
‘You fell where all the young men bled.’

‘I watched you go into the night,
Disappearing from the fight.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘that cannot be true —
I still remember me and you.’

Then suddenly the world turns red,
I drop back down, filled now with dread.
‘Get down, John!
The guns are near!’

But John just smiles without fear.
‘It’s over now,’ he softly cries,
‘The smoke has cleared from all the skies.
No shells, no wire, no fear, no pain —
That world will not return again.’

He places one hand on my shoulder,
My heart feels both younger and older.
‘Come with me now,’ he gently says,
‘Beyond the reach of war’s old maze.’

‘I’ll show you where they all now go,
Where no more cannons roar or blow.
Your mother waits, she’s held the line,
Since you were lost in space and time.’

The tears now fall like winter rain.
‘What was it all for?
All this pain?’

He turns toward a distant light,
That burns beyond the reach of night.
‘I don’t know, Ron,’ he whispers low,
‘Some answers none of us will know.

Perhaps the living still must find
The reason left for humankind.’

And as we walked that silent road,
Where horses once so freely strode,
The horses gone, the years have fled,
Yet still I walk among the dead.

I felt the past and present blend,
Where every wound begins to mend.
Some wars will end and fade away,
Yet others live in us each day.

And on that road so lost, so bare,
I hear old Mr Jones declare —
‘Get off the Horse Road, son,’ he cries…
But only echoes now reply.

Read more of Bernard Ilsley’s poetry in Ultra Velum.

© 2026 Bernard Ilsley and/or BAEI Limited, as applicable. All rights reserved.