afes embrodiging pictures of disintegration MARIANA. "Mariana in the moated grange."-Measure for Measure. WITH blackest moss the flower-plots Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; 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 said, "I am aweary, aweary, 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, About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blacken'd waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The cluster'd marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark : She only said, "My life is dreary, She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!' And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away, In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak'd; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, 12 chemory vad absences. MARIANA. Or from the crevice peer'd about. She only said, "My life is dreary, The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The poplar made, did all confound ΤΟ 1. CLEAR-HEADED friend, whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn Roof not a glance so keen as thine : Thou wilt not live in vain. 2. Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit ; Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow: Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords Can do away that ancient lie; A gentler death shall Falsehood die, Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words. |