It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep Of him, who slumbering lies. O, weary hearts! O, slumbering eyes! Are fraught with fear and pain, No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utter desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds,—as if, with unseen wings, Eden. EDEN, where delicious Paradise, Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, LONGFELLOW, Insuperable height of loftiest shade, Cedar, and Pine, and Fir, and branching Palm, Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires Vernal delight and joy, able to drive All sadness but despair: now gentle gales Of Araby the blest, with such delay MILTON. * Satan's. Mariana. "Mariana in the moated grange."-MEASURE FOR MEASURE. I. WITH blackest moss the flower-plots That held the peach to the garden-wall. Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, "My life is dreary, II. Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. I would that I were dead!" III. Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow : The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen's low Came to her without hope of change, In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, "The day is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, IV. About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blackened waters slept, And o'er it many, round and small, The clustered marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark : She only said, "My life is dreary, V. And ever when the moon was low, away, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, "The night is dreary, He cometh not," she said; I would that I were dead!" VI. All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creaked; The blue fly sung i' the pane; the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked, Or from the crevice peered about. Old faces glimmered through the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!” VII. The sparrow's chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound |