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THE DOOM OF THE PRYNNES.
Part I.
I, BEING then a child, had once two friends,
My cousins then, my guiding angels since :
We dwelt together in a strange old house,
That, like the fortunes of our family,
Had shrunk and withered to pathetic age ;
Until men said we should some day be crushed,
A nest of eagles 'neath a crumbling rock ;
And yet there was a certain charm in this,
Like living on some cracked volcano side,
That any day might yawn and let us in,
United in the bridal of one death.
The room we used was once the banquet hall,
With many-coloured windows looking east,
Across a little, quaint, old-fashioned street,
That scarcely suited its locality —
The dark, tumultuous heart of London town.
