Chapter 1 No.1

My hair is gray, but not with years,

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men's have grown from sudden fears.[107]

My limbs are bowed, though not with toil,5

But rusted with a vile repose,

For they have been a dungeon's spoil,

And mine has been the fate of those

To whom the goodly earth and air

Are banned, and barred-forbidden fare;10

But this was for my father's faith

I suffered chains and courted death;

That father perished at the stake

For tenets he would not forsake;

And for the same his lineal race15

In darkness found a dwelling-place;

We were seven-who now are one,

Six in youth, and one in age,

Finished as they had begun,

Proud of Persecution's rage;20

One in fire, and two in field,

Their belief with blood have sealed[108]:

Dying as their father died,

For the God their foes denied;-

Three were in a dungeon cast,25

Of whom this wreck is left the last.