Page:The Improvisatrice.pdf/239

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THE COVENANTERS.


Mine home is but a blackened heap
    In the midst of a lonesome wild,
And the owl and the bat may their night-watch keep
    Where human faces smiled.

I rocked the cradle of seven fair sons,
    And I worked for their infancy;
But, when like a child in mine own old age,
    There are none to work for me!


Never! I will not know another home.
Ten summers have pass'd on, with their blue skies,
Green leaves, and singing birds, and sun-kiss'd fruit,
Since here I first took up my last abode,—
And here my bones shall rest. You say it is
A home for beasts, and not for humankind,

Q 2