Why did he gaze upon the passing prize,
Nor seize it? Did some gust of ghostly cries
Awaken round her—whisperings of Eld,
Wraith-voices of the babies she had held—
To plead for pity on her graveward days?
Far down a moment’s cleavage in the haze
Of backward years Hugh saw her now—nor saw
The little burden and the feeble squaw,
But someone sitting haloed like a saint
Beside a hearth long cold. The dream grew faint;