A Sad Road

To travel that sad road was to see naked war stripped of all her excusing pageantry. Neither women nor babes were exempt from that fierce ruin. Once we passed a white and silent mother lying dead in mid path. Here, as we rode, went up to heaven the smoke of coppice and homestead. And there, from the rocks hanging over our path, luckless maids and widowed matrons would hail and spit upon us in their wild grief. They loaded the frightened echoes with their shrieks and wailings.