Maud: a Monodrama (Part Ii, Excerpt)
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O that 'twere possible
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After long grief and pain
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To find the arms of my true love
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Round me once again!2.
When I was wont to meet her
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In the silent woody places
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By the home that gave me birth,
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We stood tranced in long embraces
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Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter
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Than anything on earth.2.
A shadow flits before me,
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Not thou, but like to thee:
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Ah Christ, that it were possible
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For one short hour to see
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The souls we loved, that they might tell us
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What and where they be.2.
It leads me forth at evening,
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It lightly winds and steals
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In a cold white robe before me,
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When all my spirit reels
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At the shouts, the leagues of lights,
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And the roaring of the wheels.2.
Half the night I waste in sighs,
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Half in dreams I sorrow after
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The delight of early skies;
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In a wakeful doze I sorrow
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For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
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For the meeting of the morrow,
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The delight of happy laughter,
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The delight of low replies.2.
‘Tis a morning pure and sweet,
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And a dewy splendour falls
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On the little flower that clings
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To the turrets and the walls;
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’Tis a morning pure and sweet,
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And the light and shadow fleet;
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She is walking in the meadow,
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And the woodland echo rings;
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In a moment we shall meet;
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She is singing in the meadow,
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And the rivulet at her feet
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Ripples on in light and shadow
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To the ballad that she sings.2.
So I hear her sing as of old,
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My bird with the shining head,
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My own dove with the tender eye?
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But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry,
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There is some one dying or dead,
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And a sullen thunder is roll’d;
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For a tumult shakes the city,
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And I wake, my dream is fled;
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In the shuddering dawn, behold,
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Without knowledge, without pity,
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By the curtains of my bed
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That abiding phantom cold.2.
Get thee hence, nor come again,
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Mix not memory with doubt,
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Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
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Pass and cease to move about!
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'Tis the blot upon the brain
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That will show itself without.2.
Then I rise, the eave-drops fall,
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And the yellow vapours choke
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The great city sounding wide;
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The day comes, a dull red ball
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Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
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On the misty river-tide.2.
Thro’ the hubbub of the market
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I steal, a wasted frame;
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It crosses here, it crosses there,
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Thro’ all that crowd confused and loud,
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The shadow still the same;
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And on my heavy eyelids
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My anguish hangs like shame.2.
Alas for her that met me,
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That heard me softly call,
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Came glimmering thro’ the laurels
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At the quiet evenfall,
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In the garden by the turrets
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Of the old manorial hall.2.
Would the happy spirit descend
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From the realms of light and song,
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In the chamber or the street,
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As she looks among the blest,
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Should I fear to greet my friend
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Or to say “Forgive the wrong,”
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Or to ask her, “Take me, sweet,
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To the regions of thy rest”?2.
But the broad light glares and beats,
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And the shadow flits and fleets
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And will not let me be;
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And I loathe the squares and streets,
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And the faces that one meets,
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Hearts with no love for me:
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Always I long to creep
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Into some still cavern deep,
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There to weep, and weep, and weep
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My whole soul out to thee....
