Page:Twilight Hours (1868).djvu/100

For the Man-king came, and he called them game,
And all the little birds lie dead.
" All the little stars are dead, dead,
All the little stars are dead ;
For the Sun-king came, with his daylight name,
And all the little stars are dead."
" A foolish song, but you have Agnes' voice,"
Mark said, and then he drew my lips to his.
Beneath the touch my sleeping woman's soul
Was troubled into life, and I recoiled.
" What is it ?" Agnes asked. Mark only smiled:
" The child is pettish, Sweet, like all her race ;
We have our special weaknesses, we Prynnes,
Our angers, fantasies, and ghostly fears,
No Saxon courage of tenacity;
We spring, and rush, and suddenly fall back :
Sometimes I almost hate to be a Prynne."
" Is that, then, us ?" I said, amazed, ashamed ;
But Agnes, laying her cheek upon my hair,
Made me a child again.
All this while
A ceaseless moaning had gone round the house,
A sighing like the sighing of the sea.