That jewell'd mass of millinery, That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull Her brother, from whom I keep aloof, A face of tenderness might be feign'd, That so, when the rotten hustings shake In another month to his brazen lies, A wretched vote may be gain'd. 7. For a raven ever croaks, at my side, Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward, Or thou wilt prove their tool. Yea too, myself from myself I guard, For often a man's own angry pride Is cap and bells for a fool. 8. Perhaps the smile and tender tone For am I not, am I not, here alone So many a summer since she died, My mother, who was so gentle and good? Here half-hid in the gleaming wood, Where I hear the dead at midday moan, And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse, And my own sad name in corners cried, When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown About its echoing chambers wide, Till a morbid hate and horror have grown Of a world in which I have hardly mixt, And a morbid eating lichen fixt On a heart half-turn'd to stone. 9. O heart of stone, are you flesh, and caught By that you swore to withstand? For what was it else within me wrought But, I fear, the new strong wine of love, That made my tongue so stammer and trip When I saw the treasured splendour, her hand, Come sliding out of her sacred glove, And the sunlight broke from her lip? 10. I have play'd with her when a child ; She remembers it now we meet. Ah well, well, well, I may be beguiled By some coquettish deceit. Yet, if she were not a cheat, If Maud were all that she seem'd, And her smile had all that I dream'd, Then the world were not so bitter But a smile could make it sweet. VII. 1. DID I hear it half in a doze Long since, I know not where? Did I dream it an hour ago, When asleep in this arm-chair? 2. Men were drinking together, Drinking and talking of me ; 'Well, if it prove a girl, the boy Will have plenty : so let it be.' 3. Is it an echo of something Read with a boy's delight, Viziers nodding together In some Arabian night? |