​

MAUD.









I.

1.

I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,

Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,

The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,

And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers 'Death.' ​ 2. For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found,

His who had given me life—father! O God! was it well?—

Mangled, and flatten'd, and crush'd, and dinted into the ground:

There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he fell. 3. Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a great speculation had fail'd,

And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair,

And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd,

And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air.

​ 4. 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. 5. 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. ​ 6. "Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse,

Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;

And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse

Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone? 7. But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind,

"When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word?

Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind

The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword. ​ 8. Sooner or later I too may passively take the print

Of the golden age—why not? I have neither hope nor trust;

May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a flint,

Cheat and be cheated, and die: who knows? we are ashes and dust. 9. Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by,

When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex, like swine,

When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie;

Peace in her vineyard—yes!—but a company forges the wine. ​ 10. And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head,

Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife,

While chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread,

And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life. 11. And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the villainous centre-bits

Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights,

While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps, as he sits

To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson lights. ​ 12. When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee,

And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones,

Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and by sea,

War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. 13. For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round by the hill,

And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam,

That the smoothfaced snubnosed rogue would leap from his counter and till,

And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yardwand, home. ​ 14. There are workmen up at the Hall: they are coming back from abroad,

The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a millionnaire:

I have heard, I know not whence, of the singular beauty of Maud,

I play'd with the girl when a child; she promised then to be fair. 15. Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles and childish escapes,

Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the Hall,

Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes,

Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced darling of all,— ​ 16. What is she now? My dreams are bad. She may bring me a curse.

No, there is fatter game on the moor; she will let me alone.

Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether woman or man be the worse.

I will bury myself in my books, and the Devil may pipe to his own.





​

II.

Long have I sigh'd for a calm: God grant I may find it at last!

It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither savour nor salt,

But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her carriage past,

Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the fault?

All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen)

Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,

Dead perfection, no more; nothing more, if it had not been

​For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour's defect of the rose,

Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, too full,

Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a sensitive nose,

From which I escaped heart-free, with the least little touch of spleen.





​

III.

Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly meek,

Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly was drown'd,

Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on the cheek,

Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a gloom profound;

Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a transient wrong

Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever as pale as before

Growing and fading and growing upon me without a sound,

​Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half the night long

Growing and fading and growing, till I could bear it no more,

But arose, and all by myself in my own dark garden ground,

Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung ship-wrecking roar,

Now to the scream of a madden'd beach dragg'd down by the wave,

Walk'd in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and found

The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his grave.





​

IV.

1. A million emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime

In the little grove where I sit—ah, wherefore cannot I be

Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful season bland,

When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a softer clime,

Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea,

The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land? ​ 2. Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet and small!

And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, scandal, and spite;

And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies as a Czar;

And here on the landward side, by a red rock, glimmers the Hall;

And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass like a light;

But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my leading star! 3. When have I bow'd to her father, the wrinkled head of the race?

I met her abroad with her brother, but not to her brother I bow'd;

​I bow'd to his lady-sister as she rode by on the moor;

But the fire of a foolish pride flash'd over her beautiful face.

O child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in being so proud;

Your father has wealth well-gotten, and I am nameless and poor. 4. I keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander and steal;

I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic, or like

A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way:

For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal;

​The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike,

And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. 5. We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in her flower;

Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen hand at a game

That pushes us off from the board, and others ever succeed?

Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for an hour;

We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a brother's shame;

However we brave it out, we men are a little breed. ​ 6. A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of Earth,

For him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran,

And he felt himself in his force to be Nature's crowning race.

As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth,

So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man:

He now is first, but is he the last? is he not too base? 7. The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain,

An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor;

​The passionate heart of the poet is whirl'd into folly and vice.

I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate brain;

For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more

Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a garden of spice. 8. For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil.

Who knows the ways of the world, how God will bring them about?

Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world is wide.

Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a Hungary fail?

​Or an infant civilisation be ruled with rod or with knout?

I have not made the world, and He that made it will guide. 9. Be mine a philosopher's life in the quiet woodland ways,

Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace be my lot,

Far-off from the clamour of liars belied in the hubbub of lies;

From the long-neck'd geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise

Because their natures are little, and, whether he heed it or not,

Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies. ​ 10. And most of all would I flee from the cruel madness of love,

The honey of poison-flowers and all the measureless ill.

Ah Maud, you milkwhite fawn, you are all unmeet for a wife.

Your mother is mute in her grave as her image in marble above;

Your father is ever in London, you wander about at your will;

You have but fed on the roses, and lain in the lilies of life.





​

V.

1. A voice by the cedar tree,

In the meadow under the Hall!

She is singing an air that is known to me,

A passionate ballad gallant and gay,

A martial song like a trumpet's call!

Singing alone in the morning of life,

In the happy morning of life and of May,

Singing of men that in battle array,

Ready in heart and ready in hand,

March with banner and bugle and fife

To the death, for their native land. 2. Maud with her exquisite face,

And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,

​And feet like sunny gems on an English green,

Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,

Singing of Death, and of Honour that cannot die,

Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean,

And myself so languid and base. 3. Silence, beautiful voice!

Be still, for you only trouble the mind

With a joy in which I cannot rejoice,

A glory I shall not find.

Still! I will hear you no more,

For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice

But to move to the meadow and fall before

Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore,

Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind,

Not her, not her, but a voice.





​

VI.

1. Morning arises stormy and pale,

No sun, but a wannish glare

In fold upon fold of hueless cloud,

And the budded peaks of the wood are bow'd

Caught and cuff'd by the gale:

I had fancied it would be fair. 2. Whom but Maud should I meet

Last night, when the sunset burn'd

On the blossom'd gable-ends

At the head of the village street,

​Whom but Maud should I meet?

And she touch'd my hand with a smile so sweet

She made me divine amends

For a courtesy not return'd. 3. And thus a delicate spark

Of glowing and growing light

Thro' the livelong hours of the dark

Kept itself warm in the heart of my dreams,

Ready to burst in a colour'd flame;

Till at last when the morning came

In a cloud, it faded, and seems

But an ashen-gray delight. 4. What if with her sunny hair,

And smile as sunny as cold,

She meant to weave me a snare

Of some coquettish deceit,

​Cleopatra-like as of old

To entangle me when we met,

To have her lion roll in a silken net

And fawn at a victor's feet. 5. Ah, what shall I be at fifty

Should Nature keep me alive,

If I find the world so bitter

When I am but twenty-five?

Yet, if she were not a cheat,

If Maud were all that she seem'd,

And her smile were all that I dream'd,

Then the world were not so bitter

But a smile could make it sweet. 6. What if tho' her eye seem'd full

Of a kind intent to me,

What if that dandy-despot, he,

​That jewell'd mass of millinery,

That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull

Smelling of musk and of insolence,

Her brother, from whom I keep aloof,

Who wants the finer politic sense

To mask, tho' but in his own behoof,

With a glassy smile his brutal scorn—

What if he had told her yestermorn

How prettily for his own sweet sake

A face of tenderness might be feign'd,

And a moist mirage in desert eyes,

That so, when the rotten hustings shake

In another month to his brazen lies,

A wretched vote may be gain'd. 7. For a raven ever croaks, at my side,

Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward,

Or thou wilt prove their tool.

Yea too, myself from myself I guard,

​For often a man's own angry pride

Is cap and bells for a fool. 8. Perhaps the smile and tender tone

Came out of her pitying womanhood,

For am I not, am I not, here alone

So many a summer since she died,

My mother, who was so gentle and good?

Living alone in an empty house,

Here half-hid in the gleaming wood,

Where I hear the dead at midday moan,

And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse,

And my own sad name in corners cried,

When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown

About its echoing chambers wide,

Till a morbid hate and horror have grown

Of a world in which I have hardly mixt,

And a morbid eating lichen fixt

On a heart half-turn'd to stone. ​ 9. O heart of stone, are you flesh, and caught

By that you swore to withstand?

For what was it else within me wrought

But, I fear, the new strong wine of love,

That made my tongue so stammer and trip

When I saw the treasured splendour, her hand,

Come sliding out of her sacred glove,

And the sunlight broke from her lip? 10. I have play'd with her when a child;

She remembers it now we meet.

Ah well, well, well, I may be beguiled

By some coquettish deceit.

Yet, if she were not a cheat,

If Maud were all that she seem'd,

And her smile had all that I dream'd,

Then the world were not so bitter

But a smile could make it sweet.





​

VII.

1. Did I hear it half in a doze

⁠Long since, I know not where?

Did I dream it an hour ago,

⁠When asleep in this arm-chair? 2. Men were drinking together,

⁠Drinking and talking of me;

'Well, if it prove a girl, the boy

⁠Will have plenty: so let it be.' 3. Is it an echo of something

⁠Read with a boy's delight,

Viziers nodding together

⁠In some Arabian night? ​ 4. Strange, that I hear two men,

⁠Somewhere, talking of me;

'Well, if it prove a girl, my boy

⁠Will have plenty: so let it be.'





​

VIII.

She came to the village church,

And sat by a pillar alone;

An angel watching an urn

Wept over her, carved in stone;

And once, but once, she lifted her eyes,

And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush'd

To find they were met by my own;

And suddenly, sweetly, my heart beat stronger

And thicker, until I heard no longer

The snowy-banded, dilettante,

Delicate-handed priest intone;

And thought, is it pride, and mused and sigh'd

'No surely, now it cannot be pride.'





​

IX.

I was walking a mile,

More than a mile from the shore,

The sun look'd out with a smile

Betwixt the cloud and the moor,

And riding at set of day

Over the dark moor land,

Rapidly riding far away,

She waved to me with her hand.

There were two at her side,

Something flash'd in the sun,

Down by the hill I saw them ride,

In a moment they were gone:

​Like a sudden spark

Struck vainly in the night,

And back returns the dark

With no more hope of light.





​

X.

1. Sick, am I sick of a jealous dread?

Was not one of the two at her side

This new-made lord, whose splendour plucks

The slavish hat from the villager's head?

Whose old grand-father has lately died,

Gone to a blacker pit, for whom

Grimy nakedness dragging his trucks

And laying his trams in a poison'd gloom

Wrought, till he crept from a gutted mine

Master of half a servile shire,

And left his coal all turn'd into gold

To a grandson, first of his noble line,

​Rich in the grace all women desire,

Strong in the power that all men adore,

And simper and set their voices lower,

And soften as if to a girl, and hold

Awe-stricken breaths at a work divine,

Seeing his gewgaw castle shine,

New as his title, built last year,

There amid perky larches and pine,

And over the sullen-purple moor

(Look at it) pricking a cockney ear. 2. What, has he found my jewel out?

For one of the two that rode at her side

Bound for the Hall, I am sure was he:

Bound for the Hall, and I think for a bride.

Blithe would her brother's acceptance be.

Maud could be gracious too, no doubt,

To a lord, a captain, a padded shape,

​A bought commission, a waxen face,

A rabbit mouth that is ever agape—

Bought? what is it he cannot buy?

And therefore splenetic, personal, base,

Sick, sick to the heart of life, am I. 3. Last week came one to the county town,

To preach our poor little army down,

And play the game of the despot kings,

Tho' the state has done it and thrice as well:

This broad-brim'd hawker of holy things,

Whose ear is stuff'd with his cotton, and rings

Even in dreams to the chink of his pence,

This huckster put down war! can he tell

Whether war be a cause or a consequence?

Put down the passions that make earth Hell!

Down with ambition, avarice, pride,

Jealousy, down! cut off from the mind

​The bitter springs of anger and fear;

Down too, down at your own fireside,

With the evil tongue and the evil ear,

For each is at war with mankind. 4. Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand,

Like some of the simple great ones gone

For ever and ever by,

One still strong man in a blatant land,

Whatever they call him, what care I,

Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat—one

Who can rule and dare not lie.





​

XI.

1. O let the solid ground

⁠Not fail beneath my feet

Before my life has found

⁠What some have found so sweet;

Then let come what come may,

What matter if I go mad,

I shall have had my day. 2. Let the sweet heavens endure,

⁠Not close and darken above me

​Before I am quite quite sure

⁠That there is one to love me;

Then let come what come may

To a life that has been so sad,

I shall have had my day.





​

XII.

1. Birds in the high Hall-garden

⁠When twilight was falling,

Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,

⁠They were crying and calling. 2. Where was Maud? in our wood;

⁠And I, who else, was with her,

Gathering woodland lilies,

⁠Myriads blow together. 3. Birds in our wood sang

⁠Ringing thro' the vallies,

Maud is here, here, here

⁠In among the lilies. ​ 4. I kiss'd her slender hand,

⁠She took the kiss sedately;

Maud is not seventeen,

⁠But she is tall and stately. 5. I to cry out on pride

⁠Who have won her favour!

Maud were sure of Heaven

⁠If lowliness could save her. 6. I know the way she went

⁠Home with her maiden posy,

For her feet have touch'd the meadows

⁠And left the daisies rosy. 7. Birds in the high Hall-garden

⁠Were crying and calling to her,

Where is Maud, Maud, Maud,

⁠One is come to woo her. ​ 8. Look, a horse at the door,

⁠And little King Charles is snarling,

Go back, my lord, across the moor,

⁠You are not her darling.





​

XIII.

1. Scorn'd, to be scorn'd by one that I scorn,

Is that a matter to make me fret?

That a calamity hard to be borne?

Well, he may live to hate me yet.

Fool that I am to be vext with his pride!

I past him, I was crossing his lands;

He stood on the path a little aside;

His face, as I grant, in spite of spite,

Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and white,

And six feet two, as I think, he stands;

But his essences turn'd the live air sick,

And barbarous opulence jewel-thick

Sunn'd itself on his breast and his hands. ​ 2. Who shall call me ungentle, unfair,

I long'd so earnestly then and there

To give him the grasp of fellowship;

But while I past he was humming an air,

Stopt, and then with a riding whip

Leisurely tapping a glossy boot,

And curving a contumelious lip,

Gorgonised me from head to foot

With a stony British stare. 3. Why sits he here in his father's chair?

That old man never comes to his place:

Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen?

For only once, in the village street,

Last year, I caught a glimpse of his face,

A gray old wolf and a lean.

Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat;

​For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit,

She might by a true descent be untrue;

And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet:

Tho' I fancy her sweetness only due

To the sweeter blood by the other side;

Her mother has been a thing complete,

However she came to be so allied.

And fair without, faithful within,

Maud to him is nothing akin:

Some peculiar mystic grace

Made her only the child of her mother,

And heap'd the whole inherited sin

On that huge scapegoat of the race,

All, all upon the brother. 4. Peace, angry spirit, and let him be!

Has not his sister smiled on me?





​

XIV.

1. Maud has a garden of roses

And lilies fair on a lawn;

There she walks in her state

And tends upon bed and bower;

And thither I climb' d at dawn

And stood by her garden-gate;

A lion ramps at the top,

He is claspt by a passion-flower. 2. Maud's own little oak-room

(Which Maud, like a precious stone

​Set in the heart of the carven gloom,

Lights with herself, when alone

She sits by her music and books,

And her brother lingers late

With a roystering company) looks

Upon Maud's own garden gate:

And I thought as I stood, if a hand, as white

As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid

On the hasp of the window, and my Delight

Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to glide

Like a beam of the seventh Heaven, down to my side,

There were but a step to be made. 3. The fancy flatter' d my mind,

And again seem'd overbold;

Now I thought that she cared for me,

Now I thought she was kind

Only because she was cold. ​ 4. I heard no sound where I stood

But the rivulet on from the lawn

Running down to my own dark wood;

Or the voice of the long sea-wave as it swell'd

Now and then in the dim-gray dawn;

But I look'd, and round, all round the house I beheld

The death-white curtain drawn;

Felt a horror over me creep,

Prickle my skin and catch my breath,

Knew that the death-white curtain meant but sleep,

Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the sleep of death.





​

XV.

So dark a mind within me dwells,

⁠And I make myself such evil cheer,

That if I be dear to some one else,

⁠Then some one else may have much to fear;

But if I be dear to some one else,

⁠Then I should be to myself more dear.

Shall I not take care of all that I think,

Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink,

If I be dear,

If I be dear to some one else.





​

XVI.

1. This lump of earth has left his estate

The lighter by the loss of his weight;

And so that he find what he went to seek,

And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown

His heart in the gross mud-honey of town,

He may stay for a year who has gone for a week:

But this is the day when I must speak,

And I see my Oread coming down,

O this is the day!

O beautiful creature, what am I

That I dare to look her way;

Think I may hold dominion sweet,

​Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast,

And dream of her beauty with tender dread,

From the delicate Arab arch of her feet

To the grace that, bright and light as the crest

Of a peacock, sits on her shining head,

And she knows it not: O, if she knew it,

To know her beauty might half undo it.

I know it the one bright thing to save

My yet young life in the wilds of Time,

Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime,

Perhaps from a selfish grave. 2. What, if she be fasten'd to this fool lord,

Dare I bid her abide by her word?

Should I love her so well if she

Had given her word to a thing so low?

Shall I love her as well if she

Can break her word were it even for me?

I trust that it is not so. ​ 3. Catch not my breath, O clamorous heart,

Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye,

For I must tell her before we part,

I must tell her, or die.





​

XVII.

Go not, happy day,

⁠From the shining fields,

Go not, happy day,

⁠Till the maiden yields.

Rosy is the West,

⁠Rosy is the South,

Roses are her cheeks,

⁠And a rose her mouth.

When the happy Yes

⁠Falters from her lips,

Pass and blush the news

⁠O'er the blowing ships.

Over blowing seas,

⁠Over seas at rest,

​Pass the happy news,

⁠Blush it thro' the West;

Till the red man dance

⁠By his red cedar tree,

And the red man's babe

⁠Leap, beyond the sea.

Blush from West to East,

⁠Blush from East to West,

Till the West is East,

⁠Blush it thro' the West.

Rosy is the West,

⁠Rosy is the South,

Roses are her cheeks,

⁠And a rose her mouth.





​

XVIII.

1. I have led her home, my love, my only friend.

There is none like her, none.

And never yet so warmly ran my blood

And sweetly, on and on

Calming itself to the long-wish'd-for end,

Full to the banks, close on the promised good. 2. None like her, none.

Just now the dry-tongued laurels' pattering talk

Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk,

​And shook my heart to think she comes once more;

But even then I heard her close the door,

The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is gone. 3. There is none like her, none.

Nor will be when our summers have deceased.

O, art thou sighing for Lebanon

In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious East,

Sighing for Lebanon,

Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased,

Upon a pastoral slope as fair,

And looking to the South, and fed

With honey'd rain and delicate air,

And haunted by the starry head

Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate,

And made my life a perfumed altar-flame;

And over whom thy darkness must have spread

With such delight as theirs of old, thy great

​Forefathers of the thornless garden, there

Shadowing the snow-limb' d Eve from whom she came. 4. Here will I lie, while these long branches sway,

And you fair stars that crown a happy day

Go in and out as if at merry play,

Who am no more so all forlorn,

As when it seem'd far better to be born

To labour and the mattock-harden'd hand,

Than nursed at ease and brought to understand

A sad astrology, the boundless plan

That makes you tyrants in your iron skies,

Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes,

Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand

His nothingness into man. 5. But now shine on, and what care I,

Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl

​The countercharm of space and hollow sky,

And do accept my madness, and would die

To save from some slight shame one simple girl. 6. Would die; for sullen-seeming Death may give

More life to Love than is or ever was

In our low world, where yet 'tis sweet to live.

Let no one ask me how it came to pass;

It seems that I am happy, that to me

A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass,

A purer sapphire melts into the sea. 7. Not die; but live a life of truest breath,

And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs.

O, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs,

Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death?

Make answer, Maud my bliss,

Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss,

​Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this?

'The dusky strand of Death inwoven here

With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear.' 8. Is that enchanted moan only the swell

Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay?

And hark the clock within, the silver knell

Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white,

And died to live, long as my pulses play;

But now by this my love has closed her sight

And given false death her hand, and stol'n away

To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell

Among the fragments of the golden day.

May nothing there her maiden grace affright!

Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell.

My bride to be, my evermore delight,

My own heart's heart and ownest own, farewell.

It is but for a little space I go:

​And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell

Beat to the noiseless music of the night!

Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow

Of your soft splendours that you look so bright?

I have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell.

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below,

Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell,

Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe

That seems to draw—but it shall not be so:

Let all be well, be well.





​

XIX.

1. Strange, that I felt so gay,

Strange, that I tried to-day

To beguile her melancholy;

The Sultan, as we name him,—

She did not wish to blame him—

But he vext her and perplext her

With his worldly talk and folly:

Was it gentle to reprove her

For stealing out of view

From a little lazy lover

Who but claims her as his due?

Or for chilling his caresses

By the coldness of her manners,

​Nay, the plainness of her dresses?

Now I know her but in two,

Nor can pronounce upon it

If one should ask me whether

The habit, hat, and feather,

Or the frock and gipsy bonnet

Be the neater and completer;

For nothing can be sweeter

Than maiden Maud in either. 2. But to morrow, if we live,

Our ponderous squire will give

A grand political dinner

To half the squirelings near;

And Maud will wear her jewels,

And the bird of prey will hover,

And the titmouse hope to win her

With his chirrup at her ear. ​ 3. A grand political dinner

To the men of many acres,

A gathering of the Tory,

A dinner and then a dance

For the maids and marriage-makers,

And every eye but mine will glance

At Maud in all her glory.

For I am not invited,

But, with the Sultan's pardon,

I am all as well delighted,

For I know her own rose-garden,

And mean to linger in it

Till the dancing will be over;

And then, oh then, come out to me

For a minute, but for a minute,

Come out to your own true lover,

​That your true lover may see

Your glory also, and render

All homage to his own darling,

Queen Maud in all her splendour.





​

XX.

Rivulet crossing my ground,

And bringing me down from the Hall

This garden-rose that I found,

Forgetful of Maud and me,

And lost in trouble and moving round

Here at the head of a tinkling fall,

And trying to pass to the sea;

O Rivulet, born at the Hall,

My Maud has sent it by thee

(If I read her sweet will right)

On a blushing mission to me,

Saying in odour and colour, 'Ah, be

Among the roses to-night.'





​

XXI.

1. Come into the garden, Maud,

⁠For the black bat, night, has flown,

Come into the garden, Maud,

⁠I am here at the gate alone;

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,

⁠And the musk of the roses blown. 2. For a breeze of morning moves,

⁠And the planet of Love is on high,

Beginning to faint in the light that she loves

⁠On a bed of daffodil sky,

To faint in the light of the sun she loves,

⁠To faint in his light, and to die. ​ 3. All night have the roses heard

⁠The flute, violin, bassoon;

All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd

⁠To the dancers dancing in tune;

Till a silence fell with the waking bird,

⁠And a hush with the setting moon. 4. I said to the lily, 'There is but one

⁠With whom she has heart to be gay.

When will the dancers leave her alone?

⁠She is weary of dance and play.'

Now half to the setting moon are gone,

⁠And half to the rising day;

Low on the sand and loud on the stone

⁠The last wheel echoes away. ​ 5. I said to the rose, 'The brief night goes

⁠In babble and revel and wine.

O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,

⁠For one that will never be thine?

But mine, but mine,' so I sware to the rose,

⁠'For ever and ever, mine.' 6. And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

⁠As the music clash'd in the hall;

And long by the garden lake I stood,

⁠For I heard your rivulet fall

From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,

⁠Our wood, that is dearer than all; 7. From the meadow your walks have left so sweet

⁠That whenever a March-wind sighs

​He sets the jewel-print of your feet

⁠In violets blue as your eyes,

To the woody hollows in which we meet

⁠And the valleys of Paradise. 8. The slender acacia would not shake

⁠One long milk-bloom on the tree;

The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,

⁠As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;

But the rose was awake all night for your sake,

⁠Knowing your promise to me;

The lilies and roses were all awake,

⁠They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 9. Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,

⁠Come hither, the dances are done,

​In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,

⁠Queen lily and rose in one;

Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,

⁠To the flowers, and be their sun. 10. There has fallen a splendid tear

⁠From the passion-flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

⁠She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, 'She is near, she is near;'

⁠And the white rose weeps, 'She is late;'

The larkspur listens, 'I hear, I hear;'

⁠And the lily whispers, 'I wait.' 11. She is coming, my own, my sweet;

⁠Were it ever so airy a tread,

​My heart would hear her and beat,

⁠Were it earth in an earthy bed;

My dust would hear her and beat,

⁠Had I lain for a century dead;

Would start and tremble under her feet,

⁠And blossom in purple and red.





​

XXII.

1. 'The fault was mine, the fault was mine'—

Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still,

Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill?—

It is this guilty hand!—

And there rises ever a passionate cry

From underneath in the darkening land—

What is it, that has been done?

dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky,

The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun,

The fires of Hell and of Hate;

For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word,

When her brother ran in his rage to the gate,

​He came with the babe-faced lord;

Heap'd on her terms of disgrace,

And while she wept, and I strove to be cool,

He fiercely gave me the lie,

Till I with as fierce an anger spoke,

And he struck me, madman, over the face,

Struck me before the languid fool,

Who was gaping and grinning by:

Struck for himself an evil stroke;

Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe;

For front to front in an hour we stood,

And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke

From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood,

And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code,

That must have life for a blow.

Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow.

Was it he lay there with a fading eye?

'The fault was mine,' he whisper'd, 'fly!'

Then glided out of the joyous wood

The ghastly Wraith of one that I know;

​And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry,

A cry for a brother's blood:

It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till I die. 2. Is it gone? my pulses beat—

What was it? a lying trick of the brain?

Yet I thought I saw her stand,

A shadow there at my feet,

High over the shadowy land.

It is gone; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain,

When they should burst and drown with deluging storms

The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust,

The little hearts that know not how to forgive:

Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just,

Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms,

That sting each other here in the dust;

We are not worthy to live.





​

XXIII.

1. See what a lovely shell,

Small and pure as a pearl,

Lying close to my foot,

Frail, but a work divine,

Made so fairily well

With delicate spire and whorl,

How exquisitely minute,

A miracle of design! 2. What is it? a learned man

Could give it a clumsy name.

​Let him name it who can,

The beauty would be the same. 3. The tiny cell is forlorn,

Void of the little living will

That made it stir on the shore.

Did he stand at the diamond door

Of his house in a rainbow frill?

Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,

A golden foot or a fairy horn

Thro' his dim water-world? 4. Slight, to be crush'd with a tap

Of my finger-nail on the sand,

Small, but a work divine,

Frail, but of force to withstand,

​Year upon year, the shock

Of cataract seas that snap

The three-decker's oaken spine

Athwart the ledges of rock,

Here on the Breton strand! 5. Breton, not Briton; here

Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast

Of ancient fable and fear—

Plagued with a flitting to and fro,

A disease, a hard mechanic ghost

That never came from on high

Nor ever arose from below,

But only moves with the moving eye,

Flying along the land and the main—

Why should it look like Maud?

Am I to be overawed

By what I cannot but know

Is a juggle born of the brain? ​ 6. Back from the Breton coast,

Sick of a nameless fear,

Back to the dark sea-line

Looking, thinking of all I have lost;

An old song vexes my ear;

But that of Lamech is mine. 7. For years, a measureless ill,

For years, for ever, to part —

But she, she would love me still;

And as long, God, as she

Have a grain of love for me,

So long, no doubt, no doubt,

Shall I nurse in my dark heart,

However weary, a spark of will

Not to be trampled out. ​ 8. Strange, that the mind, when fraught

With a passion so intense

One would think that it well

Might drown all life in the eye,—

That it should, by being so overwrought,

Suddenly strike on a sharper sense

For a shell, or a flower, little things

Which else would have been past by!

And now I remember, I,

When he lay dying there,

I noticed one of his many rings

(For he had many, poor worm) and thought

It is his mother's hair. 9. Who knows if he be dead?

Whether I need have fled?

Am I guilty of blood?

​However this may be,

Comfort her, comfort her, all things good,

While I am over the sea!

Let me and my passionate love go by,

But speak to her all things holy and high,

Whatever happen to me!

Me and my harmful love go by;

But come to her waking, find her asleep,

Powers of the height, Powers of the deep,

And comfort her tho' I die.





​

XXIV.

1. O that 'twere possible

After long grief and pain

To find the arms of my true love

Bound me once again! 2. When I was wont to meet her

In the silent woody places

Of the land that gave me birth,

We stood tranced in long embraces

Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter

Than any thing on earth. ​ 3. A shadow flits before me,

Not thou, but like to thee;

Ah Christ, that it were possible

For one short hour to see

The souls we loved, that they might tell us

What and where they be. 4. It leads me forth at evening,

It lightly winds and steals

In a cold white robe before me,

When all my spirit reels

At the shouts, the leagues of lights,

And the roaring of the wheels. 5. Half the night I waste in sighs,

Half in dreams I sorrow after

​The delight of early skies;

In a wakeful doze I sorrow

For the hand, the lips, the eyes,

For the meeting of the morrow,

The delight of happy laughter,

The delight of low replies. 6. 'Tis a morning pure and sweet,

And a dewy splendour falls

On the little flower that clings

To the turrets and the walls;

'Tis a morning pure and sweet,

And the light and shadow fleet;

She is walking in the meadow,

And the woodland echo rings;

In a moment we shall meet;

She is singing in the meadow,

And the rivulet at her feet

​Ripples on in light and shadow

To the ballad that she sings. 7. Do I hear her sing as of old,

My bird with the shining head,

My own dove with the tender eye?

But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry,

There is some one dying or dead,

And a sullen thunder is roll'd;

For a tumult shakes the city,

And I wake, my dream is fled;

In the shuddering dawn, behold,

Without knowledge, without pity,

By the curtains of my bed

That abiding phantom cold. 8. Get thee hence, nor come again,

Mix not memory with doubt,

​Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,

Pass and cease to move about,

'Tis the blot upon the brain

That will show itself without. 9. Then I rise, the eavedrops fall,

And the yellow vapours choke

The great city sounding wide;

The day comes, a dull red ball

Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke

On the misty river-tide. 10. Thro' the hubbub of the market

I steal, a wasted frame,

It crosses here, it crosses there,

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud,

​The shadow still the same;

And on my heavy eyelids

My anguish hangs like shame. 11. Alas for her that met me,

That heard me softly call,

Came glimmering thro' the laurels

At the quiet evenfall,

In the garden by the turrets

Of the old manorial hall. 12. Would the happy spirit descend,

From the realms of light and song,

In the chamber or the street,

As she looks among the blest,

Should I fear to greet my friend

​Or to say 'forgive the wrong,'

Or to ask her, 'take me, sweet,

To the regions of thy rest?' 13. But the broad light glares and beats,

And the shadow flits and fleets

And will not let me be;

And I loathe the squares and streets,

And the faces that one meets,

Hearts with no love for me:

Always I long to creep

Into some still cavern deep,

There to weep, and weep, and weep

My whole soul out to thee.





​

XXV.

1. Dead, long dead,

Long dead!

And my heart is a handful of dust,

And the wheels go over my head,

And my bones are shaken with pain,

For into a shallow grave they are thrust,

Only a yard beneath the street,

And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat,

The hoofs of the horses beat,

Beat into my scalp and my brain,

With never an end to the stream of passing feet,

Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying,

Clamour and rumble, and ringing and clatter,

​And here beneath it is all as bad,

For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so;

To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad?

But up and down and to and fro,

Ever about me the dead men go;

And then to hear a dead man chatter

Is enough to drive one mad. 2. Wretchedest age, since Time began,

They cannot even bury a man;

And tho' we paid our tithes in the days that are gone,

Not a bell was rung, not a prayer was read;

It is that which makes us loud in the world of the dead;

There is none that does his work, not one;

A touch of their office might have sufficed,

But the churchmen fain would kill their church,

As the churches have kill'd their Christ. ​ 3. See, there is one of us sobbing,

No limit to his distress;

And another, a lord of all things, praying

To his own great self, as I guess;

And another, a statesman there, betraying

His party-secret, fool, to the press;

And yonder a vile physician, blabbing

The case of his patient—all for what?

To tickle the maggot born in an empty head,

And wheedle a world that loves him not,

For it is but a world of the dead. 4. Nothing but idiot gabble!

For the prophecy given of old

And then not understood,

Has come to pass as foretold;

Not let any man think for the public good,

​But babble, merely for babble.

For I never whisper'd a private affair

Within the hearing of cat or mouse,

No, not to myself in the closet alone,

But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the house;

Everything came to be known:

Who told him we were there? 5. Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back

From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used to lie;

He has gather'd the bones for his o'ergrown whelp to crack;

Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and die. 6. Prophet, curse me the blabbing lip,

And curse me the British vermin, the rat;

​I know not whether he came in the Hanover ship,

But I know that he lies and listens mute

In an ancient mansion's crannies and holes:

Arsenic, arsenic, sir, would do it,

Except that now we poison our babes, poor souls!

It is all used up for that. 7. Tell him now: she is standing here at my head;

Not beautiful now, not even kind;

He may take her now; for she never speaks her mind,

But is ever the one thing silent here.

She is not of us, as I divine;

She comes from another stiller world of the dead,

Stiller, not fairer than mine. 8. But I know where a garden grows,

Fairer than aught in the world beside,

​All made up of the lily and rose

That blow by night, when the season is good,

To the sound of dancing music and flutes:

It is only flowers, they had no fruits,

And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood;

For the keeper was one, so full of pride,

He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride;

For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes,

Would he have that hole in his side? 9. But what will the old man say?

He laid a cruel snare in a pit

To catch a friend of mine one stormy day;

Yet now I could even weep to think of it;

For what will the old man say

When he comes to the second corpse in the pit? 10. Friend, to be struck by the public foe,

​Then to strike him and lay him low,

That were a public merit, far,

Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin;

But the red life spilt for a private blow—

I swear to you, lawful and lawless war

Are scarcely even akin. 11. O me, why have they not buried me deep enough?

Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough,

Me, that was never a quiet sleeper?

Maybe still I am but half-dead;

Then I cannot be wholly dumb;

1 will cry to the steps above my head,

And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come

To bury me, bury me

Deeper, ever so little deeper.





​

XXVI.