Maud, and Other Poems — Maud Part I, XIII-XVIII

XIII.

1. Scorn'd, to be scorn'd by one that I scorn, Is that a matter to make me fret?

That a calamity hard to be borne?

Well, he may live to hate me yet.

Fool that I am to be vext with his pride!

I past him, I was crossing his lands;

He stood on the path a little aside;

His face, as I grant, in spite of spite, Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and white, And six feet two, as I think, he stands;

But his essences turn'd the live air sick, And barbarous opulence jewel-thick Sunn'd itself on his breast and his hands.

2. Who shall call me ungentle, unfair, I long'd so heartily then and there To give him the grasp of fellowship;

But while I past he was humming an air, Stopt, and then with a riding whip Leisurely tapping a glossy boot, And curving a contumelious lip, Gorgonised me from head to foot With a stony British stare.

3. Why sits he here in his father's chair?

That old man never comes to his place: Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen?

For only once, in the village street, Last year, I caught a glimpse of his face, A gray old wolf and a lean.

Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat;

For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit, She might by a true descent be untrue;

And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet: Tho' I fancy her sweetness only due To the sweeter blood by the other side;

Her mother has been a thing complete, However she came to be so allied.

And fair without, faithful within, Maud to him is nothing akin: Some peculiar mystic grace Made her only the child of her mother, And heap'd the whole inherited sin On that huge scapegoat of the race, All, all upon the brother.

4. Peace, angry spirit, and let him be!

Has not his sister smiled on me?

XIV.

1. Maud has a garden of roses And lilies fair on a lawn: There she walks in her state And tends upon bed and bower And thither I climb'd at dawn And stood by her garden-gate;

A lion ramps at the top, He is claspt by a passion-flower.

2. Maud's own little oak-room (Which Maud, like a precious stone Set in the heart of the carven gloom, Lights with herself, when alone She sits by her music and books, And her brother lingers late With a roystering company) looks Upon Maud's own garden gate: And I thought as I stood, if a hand, as white As ocean-foam in the moon, were laid On the hasp of the window, and my Delight Had a sudden desire, like a glorious ghost, to glide, Like a beam of the seventh Heaven, down to my side, There were but a step to be made.

3. The fancy flatter'd my mind, And again seem'd overbold;

Now I thought that she cared for me, Now I thought she was kind Only because she was cold.

4. I heard no sound where I stood But the rivulet on from the lawn Running down to my own dark wood;

Or the voice of the long sea-wave as it swell'd Now and then in the dim-gray dawn;

But I look'd, and round, all round the house I beheld The death-white curtain drawn;

Felt a horror over me creep, Prickle my skin and catch my breath, Knew that the death-white curtain meant but sleep, Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the sleep of death.

XV.

So dark a mind within me dwells, And I make myself such evil cheer, That if I be dear to some one else, Then some one else may have much to fear;

But if I be dear to some one else, Then I should be to myself more dear.

Shall I not take care of all that I think, Yea ev'n of wretched meat and drink, If I be dear, If I be dear to some one else.

XVI.

1. This lump of earth has left his estate The lighter by the loss of his weight;

And so that he find what he went to seek, And fulsome Pleasure clog him, and drown His heart in the gross mud-honey of town, He may stay for a year who has gone for a week: But this is the day when I must speak, And I see my Oread coming down, O this is the day!

O beautiful creature, what am I That I dare to look her way;

Think I may hold dominion sweet, Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast, And dream of her beauty with tender dread, From the delicate Arab arch of her feet To the grace that, bright and light as the crest Of a peacock, sits on her shining head, And she knows it not: O, if she knew it, To know her beauty might half undo it.

I know it the one bright thing to save My yet young life in the wilds of Time, Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime, Perhaps from a selfish grave.

2. What, if she be fasten'd to this fool lord, Dare I bid her abide by her word?

Should I love her so well if she Had given her word to a thing so low?

Shall I love her as well if she Can break her word were it even for me?

I trust that it is not so.

3. Catch not my breath, O clamorous heart, Let not my tongue be a thrall to my eye, For I must tell her before we part, I must tell her, or die.

XVII.

Go not, happy day, From the shining fields, Go not, happy day.

Till the maiden yields.

Rosy is the West, Rosy is the South, Roses are her cheeks, And a rose her mouth.

When the happy Yes Falters from her lips, Pass and blush the news O'er the blowing ships.

Over blowing seas, Over seas at rest, Pass the happy news, Blush it thro' the West;

Till the red man dance By his red cedar tree, And the red man's babe Leap, beyond the sea.

Blush from West to East, Blush from East to West, Till the West is East, Blush it thro' the West.

Rosy is the West, Rosy is the South, Roses are her cheeks.

And a rose her mouth.

XVIII.

1. I have led her home, my love, my only friend.

There is none like her, none.

And never yet so warmly ran my blood And sweetly, on and on Calming itself to the long-wish'd-for end, Full to the banks, close on the promised good.

2. None like her, none.

Just now the dry-tongued laurels' pattering talk Seem'd her light foot along the garden walk, And shook my heart to think she comes once more;

But even then I heard her close the door, The gates of Heaven are closed, and she is gone.

3. There is none like her, none.

Nor will be when our summers have deceased.

O, art thou sighing for Lebanon In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious East, Sighing for Lebanon, Dark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased, Upon a pastoral slope as fair, And looking to the South, and fed With honey'd rain and delicate air, And haunted by the starry head Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, And made my life a perfumed altar-flame;

And over whom thy darkness must have spread With such delight as theirs of old, thy great Forefathers of the thornless garden, there Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom she came.

4. Here will I lie, while these long branches sway, And you fair stars that crown a happy day Go in and out as if at merry play, Who am no more so all forlorn, As when it seem'd far better to be born To labour and the mattock-harden'd hand, Than nursed at ease and brought to understand A sad astrology, the boundless plan That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand His nothingness into man.

5. But now shine on, and what care I, Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl The countercharm of space and hollow sky, And do accept my madness, and would die To save from some slight shame one simple girl.

6. Would die; for sullen-seeming Death may give More life to Love than is or ever was In our low world, where yet 'tis sweet to live.

Let no one ask me how it came to pass;

It seems that I am happy, that to me A livelier emerald twinkles in the grass, A purer sapphire melts into the sea.

7. Not die; but live a life of truest breath, And teach true life to fight with mortal wrongs.

O, why should Love, like men in drinking-songs, Spice his fair banquet with the dust of death?

Make answer, Maud my bliss, Maud made my Maud by that long lover's kiss, Life of my life, wilt thou not answer this?

'The dusky strand of Death inwoven here With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear.'

8. Is that enchanted moan only the swell Of the long waves that roll in yonder bay?

And hark the clock within, the silver knell Of twelve sweet hours that past in bridal white, And died to live, long as my pulses play;

But now by this my love has closed her sight And given false death her hand, and stol'n away To dreamful wastes where footless fancies dwell Among the fragments of the golden day.

May nothing there her maiden grace affright!

Dear heart, I feel with thee the drowsy spell.

My bride to be, my evermore delight, My own heart's heart and ownest own farewell;

It is but for a little space I go: And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell Beat to the noiseless music of the night!

Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow Of your soft splendours that you look so bright?

I have climb'd nearer out of lonely Hell.

Beat, happy stars, timing with things below, Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe That seems to draw--but it shall not be so: Let all be well, be well.