Another day that finds her living yet,

Little Pompilia, with the patient brow

And lamentable smile on those poor lips,

And, under the white hospital-array,

A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise

You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,

Alive i' the ruins. 'Tis a miracle.

It seems that, when her husband struck her first,

She prayed Madonna just that she might live

So long as to confess and be absolved;