Darkhaired

On a high hill they stood / Abraham and young cousin Lot / Looking over the country of Canaan / The land smiled in the Jordan plain / Softly she whispered to him; / “Choose the green pastures of the plain” / Lot took that choice at once / It seemed so good to them / Together with their little girls / Into Sodom they went / Happy, browneyed, darkhaired girls / Who would be their husband?

Our cottage has been rented again; as I write this the new family is arriving on the terrace and Annamaria wants to put the little darkhaired boys in the hammock before she takes it down and folds it up, but the children are afraid; they’ve never seen anything like that.

But why do you never paint darkhaired girls? Surely not all of the saints are blond.