232
THE COVENANTERS.
I lay on the cold stones and wept aloud,
And prayed the fever to return again
And bring death with it. Yet did I escape,—
Again I drank the fresh blue air of heaven,
And felt the sunshine laugh upon my brow;
I thought then I would seek my desolate home,
And die where it had been. I reached the place:
The ground was bare and scorched, and in the midst
Was a black heap of ashes. Frantickly
I groped amid them, ever and anon
Meeting some human fragment, skulls and bones
Shapeless and cinders, till I drew a curl,
A long and beautiful curl of sunny hair,
Stainless and golden, as but then just severed,
A love gift from the head: I knew the hair—
It was my daughter's! There I stood, and howled
