Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/869

 LORD TENNYSON

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 wa]k 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, c l am aweary, aweary,

I would that I were dead'*

About a stone-cast from the wall

A sluice with blackcn'd waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small,

The cluster'd marish-mosbes crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway,

All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did mark The level waste, the rounding gray.

She only said, 'My life is dreary,

He cometh not,' she said;

She said, C I am aweary, aweary,

1 would thit 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,

The shadow of the poplar fell

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