Maud 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….

NOTESForm: irregular rhyming