That jewell'd mass of millinery,
That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian Bull
Smelling of musk and of insolence,
Her brother, from whom I keep aloof,
Who wants the finer politic sense
To mask, tho' but in his own behoof,
With a glassy smile his brutal scorn
What if he had told her yester-morn
How prettily for his own sweet sake
A face of tenderness might be feign'd,
And a moist mirage in desert eyes,

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

Came out of her pitying womanhood,

For am I not, am I not, here alone

So many a summer since she died,

My mother, who was so gentle and good?

Living alone in an empty house,

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 splendor, 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 ?

4.

Strange, that I hear two men,
Somewhere, talking of me;

Well, if it prove a girl, my boy

Will have plenty: so let it be.'