14. What am I raging alone as my father raged in his mood? Must I too creep to the hollow and dash myself down and die Rather than hold by the law that I made, never more to brood On a horror of shatter'd limbs and a wretched swindler's lie? 15. Would there be sorrow for me? there was love in the passionate shriek, Love for the silent thing that had made false haste to the grave Wrapt in a cloak, as I saw him, and thought he would rise and speak And rave at the lie and the liar, ah God, as he used to rave. 16. I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of the moor and the main. Why should I stay? can a sweeter chance ever come to me here? O, having the nerves of motion as well as the nerves of pain, Were it not wise if I fled from the place and the pit and the fear? 17. There are workmen up at the Hall: they are coming back from abroad; The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a millionnaire : I have heard, I know not whence, of the singular beauty of Maud; I play'd with the girl when a child; she promised then to be fair. 18. Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles and childish escapes, Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the Hall, Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes, Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced darling of all, 19. What is she now? My dreams are bad. She may bring me a curse. No, there is fatter game on the moor; she will let me alone. Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether woman or man be the worse.. I will bury myself in my books, and the Devil may pipe to his own. II. LONG have I sigh'd for a calm: God grant I may find it at last! It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither savour nor salt, But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her carriage past, Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her where is the fault? All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen) Faultily null, faultless, icily regular, splendidly Dead perfection, no more; nothing more, if it had not been |