The Last Song of Margaret Wilson - a poem

Three hundred and forty-one years ago, on the 11th of May, two women were executed. They were Covenanters - Christians who held to the principles of the Scottish Reformation and often had to sacrifice their own lives rather than compromise their beliefs.

Captured and refusing to recant, Widow Margaret McLachlan and her young friend Margaret Wilson were drowned. Nineteen-year old Margaret Wilson is recorded to have sung Psalms and recited Scripture aloud as she waited for the waves to cover her. Her last words were from Psalm 25:

My sins and faults of youth do thou, O Lord, forget: After thy mercy think on me, and for thy goodness great.

The following poem is in honour of this young martyr and her good God.

The Last Song of Margaret Wilson

Covenant-keepers and faithful are we

Long did we hide from governing men

For we will not call him king, even

Here where we stand at the edge of the sea

Two stakes are planted, sad twin trees

I’m tied to the high one, to watch for now

The old widow is bound very near

Right at the edge of the sea

The prayers of a crowd wash over me

The song in my soul is still

Salt water creeps up the channel 

Here at the edge of the sea

You have one last chance to be free,

The officer calls aloud,

To Scotland’s king you must now bow

Or you’ll be left to die in the sea

Will you drown a young maid of nineteen?

And kill an old woman? crowd cries

I look at the widow, she knows it is time 

To leave o’er the edge of the sea

The old widow’s eyes are misty

As she prays lifts her face to the sky

And shows me the way to die for my Lord

Here at the edge of the sea

The billows draw nigh, I cannot see

Her white hair in the foam

No bubbles rise from the water-logged stake

She is gone under the blue sea

My heart wants to stop, my body to flee

A soldier holds up my head

My last breath a song, a Psalm of lament

Here just above the dark sea

When the waves take me, this my plea

I will die in the sight of my King

And in His strong arms be lifted so gently

Over the edge of the sea

B.T.