"In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, Then of the moral instinct would she prate, "I take possession of man's mind and deed. Full oft the riddle of the painful earth And so she throve and prosper'd so three years Lest she should fail and perish utterly, Plagued her with sore despair. When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight, The airy hand confusion wrought, Wrote "Mene, mene," and divided quite The kingdom of her thought. Deep dread and loathing of her solitude "What! is not this my place of strength," she said, "My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid Since my first memory?" But in dark corners of her palace stood On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, A spot of dull stagnation, without light Making for one sure goal. A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand; A star that with the choral starry dance Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd. "No voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall, "No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world: One deep, deep silence all!" She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod, And death and life she hated equally, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, Remaining utterly confused with fears, Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, A little before moon-rise hears the low Moan of an unknown sea; And knows not if it be thunder or a sound Of Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry great wild beasts; then thinketh, "I have found A new land, but I die." She howl'd aloud, "I am on fire within. So when four years were wholly finished, 66 Make me a cottage in the vale,” she said, "Where I may mourn and pray. "Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. L ADY Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown: Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I know you proud to bear your name, Too proud to care from whence I came. Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies: But there was that across his throat Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother's view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you. Indeed I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. |