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MARIANA.

Mariana in the moated grange.--_Measure for Measure_.

[Illustration]

With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all;
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach to the garden wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange--
Uplifted 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, weary,
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, weary,
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, weary,
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 dark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, "My life is dreary--
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, weary,
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,