from Maud (Part II)

O that 'twere possible

After long grief and pain

To find the arms of my true love

Round me once again!

    When I was wont to meet her

In the silent woody places

By the home that gave me birth,

We stood tranced in long embraces

Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter

Than anything on earth.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    '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.

    So 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.

    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.

    Then I rise, the eave-drops 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.

    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.

    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.

    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"?

    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.