Page:Twilight Hours (1868).djvu/100

56 THE DOOM OF THE PRYNNES. For the Man-king came, and he called them game, And all the little birds lie dead. " All the little stars are dead, dead, All the little stars are dead ; For the Sun-king came, with his daylight name, And all the little stars are dead." " A foolish song, but you have Agnes' voice," Mark said, and then he drew my lips to his. Beneath the touch my sleeping woman's soul Was troubled into life, and I recoiled. " What is it ?" Agnes asked. Mark only smiled: " The child is pettish, Sweet, like all her race ; We have our special weaknesses, we Prynnes, Our angers, fantasies, and ghostly fears, No Saxon courage of tenacity; We spring, and rush, and suddenly fall back : Sometimes I almost hate to be a Prynne." " Is that, then, us ?" I said, amazed, ashamed ; But Agnes, laying her cheek upon my hair, Made me a child again. All this while A ceaseless moaning had gone round the house, A sighing like the sighing of the sea.