And a singing maiden, pitched her purple tents

In Rome, leaned with a mother’s fears

In Bethlehem to nurse a son of God upon her breast

And learned the tender loneliness of tears,

Awhile had hid in Europe, sad

In the shadow of magnificence,

Brooding, finding no rest,

And then of a sudden she had run forth from her hiding-place,

Rejoicing, desperate, intense

Against her enemy, a rod