MAUD. PART I. I. 1. HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath, The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood, And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers "Death." II. For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found, His who had given me life-O father! O God! was it well?— Mangled and flatten'd, and crush'd, and dinted into the ground: There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he fell. III. Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had fail'd, And ever he mutter'd and madden'd, and ever wann'd with despair, And out he walk'd when the wind like a broken worldling wail'd, And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air. IV. I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd by a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper'd fright, 3 |