Dora Sigerson Shorter

“ Jeanne Bras, Jeanne Bras, she rose up with the dawn,
⁠And flung off the bolt and the chain:
The first thing she rested her hot eyes upon
⁠Was the child who had called her in vain.
The next thing she saw was the babe, all so white,
⁠Lying cold on its cold mother's breast.
Each face bore the tears of its pitiful plight—
⁠They lay in their sleeping unblest.
Jeanne Bras, Jeanne Bras, she laid them side by side,
⁠All in their cold and silent bed ”

“ She heard the loud wail of a woman's sad plight,
⁠And a babe in its agony shrill.
Again she rose up with her taper aflame,
⁠And the great door all soon she unbarred;
She called through the night on her lost daughter's name,
⁠Slow she went to the ancient churchyard. ”