MARIANA.

Hail, bounteous May, that dost inspire
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

MILTON.

95

Mariana.

"Mariana in the moated grange."-Measure for Measure.
ITH blackest moss the flower-pots

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 grey-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 in many, round and small,

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

All silver-green with gnarléd bark;
For leagues, no other tree did dark
The level waste, the rounding grey.

MARIANA.

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, "I am aweary, weary,
I would that I were dead!"

All day, within the dreary house,

The doors upon their hinges creak'd ; The blue-fly sang i' the pane; the mouse

Behind the mould'ring wainscot shriek'd,

Or from the crevice peer'd about.

Old faces glimmer'd through 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, weary,

I would that I were dead!

N

97

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-moated sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping towards his western bower.
Then said she, "I am very dreary-
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, weary,
I would that I were dead!"

Ode.

OW sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
He there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;

TENNYSON.

There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall a while repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

COLLINS. [Written in the year 1746.]

[WILLIAM COLLINS, a poet chiefly known by his beautiful odes on "The Passions," "To Evening," &c., had a short and mournful career. As a literary adventurer in London, he underwent privations which unsettled his mind; and when at last relief came, in the shape of a legacy of £2000, the unhappy poet was mad! And thus he died, hopelessly insane, at thirty-six years of age.]