Maud, and Other Poems — Maud Part II, I-IV

I.

1. 'The fault was mine, the fault was mine'-- Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still, Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill?

-- It is this guilty hand!

-- And there rises ever a passionate cry From underneath in the darkening land-- What is it, that has been done?

O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky, The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun, The fires of Hell and of Hate;

For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word, When her brother ran in his rage to the gate, He came with the babe-faced lord;

Heap'd on her terms of disgrace, And while she wept, and I strove to be cool, He fiercely gave me the lie, Till I with as fierce an anger spoke, And he struck me, madman, over the face, Struck me before the languid fool, Who was gaping and grinning by: Struck for himself an evil stroke;

Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe;

For front to front in an hour we stood, And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood, And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code, That must have life for a blow.

Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow.

Was it he lay there with a fading eye?

'The fault was mine,' he whisper'd, 'fly!'

Then glided out of the joyous wood The ghastly Wraith of one that I know;

And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry, A cry for a brother's blood: It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till I die.

2. Is it gone?

my pulses beat-- What was it?

a lying trick of the brain?

Yet I thought I saw her stand, A shadow there at my feet, High over the shadowy land.

It is gone; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain, When they should burst and drown with deluging storms The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust, The little hearts that know not how to forgive: Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just, Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms, That sting each other here in the dust;

We are not worthy to live.

II.

1. See what a lovely shell, Small and pure as a pearl, Lying close to my foot, Frail, but a work divine, Made so fairily well With delicate spire and whorl, How exquisitely minute, A miracle of design!

2. What is it?

a learned man Could give it a clumsy name.

Let him name it who can, The beauty would be the same.

3. The tiny cell is forlorn, Void of the little living will That made it stir on the shore.

Did he stand at the diamond door Of his house in a rainbow frill?

Did he push, when he was uncurl'd, A golden foot or a fairy horn Thro' his dim water-world?

4. Slight, to be crush' d with a tap Of my finger-nail on the sand, Small, but a work divine, Frail, but of force to withstand, Year upon year, the shock Of cataract seas that snap The three-decker's oaken spine Athwart the ledges of rock, Here on the Breton strand!

5. Breton, not Briton; here Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast Of ancient fable and fear-- Plagued with a flitting to and fro, A disease, a hard mechanic ghost That never came from on high Nor ever arose from below, But only moves with the moving eye, Flying along the land and the main-- Why should it look like Maud?

Am I to be overawed By what I cannot but know Is a juggle born of the brain?

6. Back from the Breton coast, Sick of a nameless fear, Back to the dark sea-line Looking, thinking of all I have lost;

An old song vexes my ear;

But that of Lamech is mine.

7. For years, a measureless ill, For years, for ever, to part-- But she, she would love me still;

And as long, God, as she Have a grain of love for me, So long, no doubt, no doubt, Shall I nurse in my dark heart, However weary, a spark of will Not to be trampled out.

8. Strange, that the mind, when fraught With a passion so intense One would think that it well Might drown all life in the eye,-- That it should, by being so overwrought, Suddenly strike on a sharper sense For a shell, or a flower, little things Which else would have been past by!

And now I remember, I, When he lay dying there, I noticed one of his many rings (For he had many, poor worm) and thought It is his mother's hair.

9. Who knows if he be dead?

Whether I need have fled?

Am I guilty of blood?

However this may be, Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, While I am over the sea!

Let me and my passionate love go by, But speak to her all things holy and high, Whatever happen to me!

Me and my harmful love, go by;

But come to her waking, find her asleep, Powers of the height.

Powers of the deep, And comfort her tho' I die.

III.

Courage, poor heart of stone!

I will not ask thee why Thou canst not understand That thou art left for ever alone: Courage, poor stupid heart of stone.

-- Or if I ask thee why, Care not thou to reply: She is but dead, and the time is at hand When thou shalt more than die.

IV.

1. O that 'twere possible After long grief and pain To find the arms of my true love Round me once again!

2. 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 any thing on earth.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. '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.

7. Do 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.

8. 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.

9. Then I rise, the eavedrops 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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?

' 13. 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.