Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/868

 LORD HOUGHTON

Blending their souls' subliinest needs

With tasks of every day, They went about their gravest deeds

As noble boys at play.

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��ALFRED TENNYSON, LORD TENNYSON

707 Mariana

riTH 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. Unliftcd was the clinking latch, Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said, 'My life is.drcary,

He cometh not/ she said,

She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,

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 1 were dead!'

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