As one scarce less forlorn, Dying abroad and it seems apart From him who had ceased to share her heart, And ever mourning over the feud, The household Fury sprinkled with blood By which our houses are torn: How strange was what she said, When only Maud and the brother That Maud's dark father and mine Had bound us one to the other, Betrothed us over their wine, On the day when Maud was born; Seal'd her mine from her first sweet breath. Mine, mine by a right, from birth till death, Mine, mine-our fathers have sworn. 5. But the true blood spilt had in it a heat To dissolve the precious seal on a bond, That, if left uncancell'd, had been. so sweet: And none of us thought of a something beyond, A desire that awoke in the heart of the child, As it were a duty done to the tomb, To be friends for her sake, to be reconciled; To be friends, to be reconciled! 6. But then what a flint is he ! Abroad, at Florence, at Rome, To me, her friend of the years before; And this was what had redden'd her cheek When I bow'd to her on the moor. 7. Yet Maud, altho' not blind To the faults of his heart and mind, I see she cannot but love him, And says he is rough but kind, And wishes me to approve him, And tells me, when she lay Sick once, with a fear of worse, That he left his wine and horses and play, Sat with her, read to her, night and day, And tended her like a nurse. 8. Kind? but the deathbed desire Spurn'd by this heir of the liar— Rough but kind? yet I know He has plotted against me in this, That he plots against me still. Kind to Maud that were not amiss. Well, rough but kind; why let it be so : For shall not Maud have her will? 9. For, Maud, so tender and true, As long as my life endures I feel I shall owe you a debt, That I never can hope to pay; And if ever I should forget That I owe this debt to you And for your sweet sake to yours; O then, what then shall I say — If ever I should forget, May God make me more wretched Than ever I have been yet! |