And they let her bide

Amid the ruins of her life,

Whose light had dropped, so suddenly,

From out the highest heavens:

And, when I turned to look on her,

And win from her a last farewell,

I saw her, sitting desolate betwixt

Her silent husband and her wailing babe,

With still, strange eyes,

That stared upon the dead, unseeing,

While her own children went from her,

Scarce knowing that they left her, nevermore

To look upon her face.

Thus, we set out, as over

The darkening, Southern crags

The new moon's keen, curved blade was thrust:

My sisters trooping on before us,

Like a drove of young gazelles,

Which, in the dead of night,

With pards in leash, and torches flaring,

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