Page:Maud, and other poems.djvu/23

Rh

I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper' d fright, And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my heart as I heard The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night.

Villainy somewhere! whose? One says, we are villains all. Not he: his honest fame should at least by me be maintain' d: But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and the Hall, Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us flaccid and drain' d.