Page:The Improvisatrice.pdf/239



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!

! 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,