WHERE Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.
At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone: At noon the wild bee hummeth About the moss'd headstone: At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone. Her song the lintwhite swelleth, The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, The callow throstle lispeth, The slumbrous wave outwelleth, The babbling runnel crispeth, The hollow grot replieth Where Claribel low-lieth.
'Mariana in the moated grange.' - Measure for Measure.
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 garden-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.
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 tranco
And glanced athwart the gloomi
She only said, 'The night is
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, awea
I would that I were dead!'
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fow
The cock sung out an hour ere ligh
From the dark fen the oxen's lo
Came to her: without hope of char
In sleep she seem'd to walk forl
Till cold winds woke the grey-eye
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, 'The day is dre
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, awear
I would that I were dead!'
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters sl
And o'er it many, round and smal
The cluster'd marish-mosses crep
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark
For leagues no other tree did mar
The level waste, the rounding grey
She only said, 'My life is dreary
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
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 thei
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, 'The night is drear
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'
The blue fly sung in the pane; the n
Behind the mouldering wainscot shr
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the door
Old footsteps trod the upper floors
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, 'My life is dreary
He cometh not,' she said.