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 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.
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.
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 b'amua
On that huge scapegoat of the race, All, all upon the brother.
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 by my side,
There were but a step to be made.
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.
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;
Maud But I look'd, and round, all round the house I
The death-white curtain drawn ;
Prickle my skin and catch my breath,
Knew that the death-white curtain
Yet I shudder'd and thought like a fool of the sleep of death.
So dark a mind within me dwells, bb 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.
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 drowned His heart in the gross mud-honey of town, 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.
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.
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.
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