W

Were thickly crusted, one and all :

The rusted nails fell from the knots

That held the pear to the gable-wall.

The broken sheds look'd sad and strange : Unlifted was the clinking latch;

Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange.

B

She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;

She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!

Her tears fell with the dews at even;

Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven,

Either at morn or eventide.

After the flitting of the bats,

When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by,

And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, 'The night is dreary, He cometh not,' she said;

She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!'

Upon the middle of the night,

Waking she heard the night-fowl crow :

The cock sung out an hour ere light :
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.

She only said, 'The day is dreary,

He cometh not,' she said;

She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead!'