"Mariana in the Moated Grange"

(Shakespeare, Measure for Measure)



With 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:



Unlifted was the clinking latch;



Weeded and worn the ancient thatch



Upon the lonely moated grange.



She only said, "My life is dreary,



He cometh not," she said;



She said, "I am aweary, aweary,



I would that I were dead!"







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 I were dead!"







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 walk 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, "I am aweary, aweary,



I would that I were dead!"







About a stone-cast from the wall



A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,



And o'er it many, round and small,



The cluster'd marish-mosses 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 "I am aweary, aweary



I would that 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



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'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 glimmer'd thro' the doors



Old footsteps trod the upper floors,



Old voices called her from without.



She only said, "My life is dreary,



He cometh not," she said;



She said, "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,



Oh God, that I were dead!"









