Page:Dora Sigerson Shorter - New Poems.djvu/42

 "She screamed, and up the marble stair Flew like a creature of the wood, And as the hunters on the hare They turned—the chase was in their blood.

"Their shouts came to her like the call Of baying hounds upon her track, The turret roof she reached—the wall— No hiding there—no going back.

"Loud came the soldiers, but she prayed No mercy from her fellows there; Death was more kind—she stood and swayed On the high wall above the glen.

"A moment faltered—then she sprang To the sweet air and God's embrace, And where she fell, the little stream Flowed soft across her dying face.

"So on the wall a cross is made Lest we forget for her to pray, For in God's sight she is afraid Who took her own sweet life away."