Page:Passions 2.pdf/280

268

Those helpless infants, and those seeming wrecks, From desolation saved? What do you want?

First Wom. Nought but the friendly shelter of your cave, For now or house, or home, or blazing hearth. Good Wizard, we have none.

Wiz. And are the armies then so near your dwellings?

First Wom. Ay, round them, in them the loud battle clangs, Within our very walls fierce spearmen push, And weapon'd warriours cross their clashing blades.

Sec. Wom. Ay, woe is me! our warm and cheerful hearths, And rushed floors whereon our children play'd, Are now the bloody lair of dying men.

Old Wom. Ah woe is me! those yellow thatched roofs, Which I have seen these sixty years and ten, Smoking so sweetly 'midst our tufted thorns, And the turf'd graves wherein our fathers sleep!

Young Wom. Ah woe is me! my little helpless babes! Now must some mossy rock or shading tree Be your cold home, and the wild haws your food. No cheerful blazing fire and seething pot Shall now, returning from his daily toil, Your father cheer; if that, if that indeed Ye have a father still (bursting into tears.)

Third Wom. Alack, alack! of all my goodly stuff I've saved but only this! my winter's webs