Have swept her onward, as a stormy blast
Might sweep some faint o’erwearied bird along—
Till now the threshold of that death is past,
And free she stands beneath the starry skies,
Calling her child—but no sweet voice replies.
“Bertha! where art thou? Speak! oh! speak, my own!”
Alas! unconscious of her pangs the while,
The gentle girl, in fear’s cold grasp alone,
Powerless had sunk within the blazing pile;
A young bright form, deck’d gloriously for death,