Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/870

 LORD TENNYSON

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!'

��All day within the dreamy house,

The doors upon their hinges creak J d; The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse

Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd, Or from the crevice peer'd about.

Old faces glimmcr'd thro' the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices call'd hei from without.

She only said, 'My life is dreary,

He cometh not,' she sajd;

She said, C 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

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. 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!'

�� �