MARIANA
WITH
blackest moss the flower-plots
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: 5
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded
and worn the ancient thatch
Upon
the lonely moated grange.
She
only said, 'My life is dreary,
He
cometh not,' she said; 10
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, 15
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. 20
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, 25
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, 30
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, 35
I
would that I were dead!'
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. 40
Hard
by a poplar shook alway,
All
silver-green with gnarlèd bark:
For
leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She
only said, 'My life is dreary, 45
He
cometh not,' she said;
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, 50
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,
The
shadow of the poplar fell 55
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She
only said, 'The night is dreary,
He
cometh not,' she said;
She
said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I
would that I were dead!' 60
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,
Or
from the crevice peer'd about. 65
Old
faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old
footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old
voices call'd her from without.
She
only said, 'My life is dreary,
He
cometh not,' she said; 70
She
said, 'I am aweary, aweary,'
I
would that I were dead!'
The
sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The
slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which
to the wooing wind aloof 75
The
poplar made, did all confound
Her
sense; but most she loathed the hour
When
the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart
the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower. 80
Then,
said she, 'I am very dreary,
He
will not come,' she said;
She
wept, 'I am aweary, aweary,
O
God, that I were dead!'
Lord Alfred
Tennyson. Mariana.
1830. Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The
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