MAUD.

PART II.

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.