How often she has gazed from castle windows o'er,

And watched the daylight passing within her captive wall,

With no-one to heed her call.



The evening hour is fading within the dwindling sun,

And in a lonely moment those embers will be gone

And the last of all the young birds flown.



Her days of precious freedom, forfeited long before,

To live such fruitless years behind a guarded door,

But those days will last no more.



Tomorrow at this hour she will be far away,

Much farther than these islands,

Or the lonely Fotheringay