And the old nurse said she bent to hear her pray:
“Oh God, for Christ’s sake, forgive this Christless sin.”
What sent these thoughts to me in my lonely attic room
Where no step but mine falls through the night and day?
Perhaps ’twas because I heard through the twilight gloom,
His voice in the garden below with his boys at play.
Their mother leaned from the porch to answer their merry call,
With a smile that made her proud face womanly and soft;
And they are two handsome lads;—when I go to the servants’ hall
For my daily dole of bread and meat, I have met them oft.