Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 1, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/98

46 Unthinking Stephen went—

Poor Martha! on that woful day

A cruel, cruel fire, they say,

Into her bones was sent:

It dried her body like a cinder,

And almost turn'd her brain to tinder.

XII.

They say, full six months after this,

While yet the summer leaves were green,

She to the mountain-top would go,

And there was often seen.

'Tis said, a child was in her womb,

As now to any eye was plain;

She was with child, and she was mad,

Yet often she was sober sad

From her exceeding pain.

Oh me! ten thousand times I'd rather,

That he had died, that cruel father!