Page:The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter.djvu/72

At dawn to-day I met her out
Upon the mountain-side,
And all her slender finger-tips
Were each a crimson dyed.

Now I had gone to seek a lamb
The darkness sent astray:
Sore for a lamb the dawning winds
And sharp-beaked birds of prey.

But when I saw the white witch maid
With blood upon her gown,
I said, “I'm poorer by a lamb;
The witch has dragged it down.”

And, “Why is this, your hands so red
All in the early day?”
I seized her by the shoulder fair.
She pulled herself away.

“It is the raddle on my hands,
The raddle all so red.
For I have marked M'Cormac's sheep
And little lambs,” she said.

“And what is this upon your mouth
And on your cheek so white?”
“Oh, it is but the berries' stain”;
She trembled in her fright.

“I swear it is no berries' stain.
Nor raddle all so red”;
I laid my hands about her throat.
She shook me off, and fled.

I had not gone to follow her
A step upon the way,
When came I to my own lost lamb,
That dead and bloody lay.