Analysis of Maud: A Monodrama (Part II, excerpt)

O that 'twere possible
.

After long grief and pain
.

To find the arms of my true love
.

Round me once again!2.

When I was wont to meet her
.

In the silent woody places
.

By the home that gave me birth,
.

We stood tranced in long embraces
.

Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter
.

Than anything on earth.2.

A shadow flits before me,
.

Not thou, but like to thee:
.

Ah Christ, that it were possible
.

For one short hour to see
.

The souls we loved, that they might tell us
.

What and where they be.2.

It leads me forth at evening,
.

It lightly winds and steals
.

In a cold white robe before me,
.

When all my spirit reels
.

At the shouts, the leagues of lights,
.

And the roaring of the wheels.2.

Half the night I waste in sighs,
.

Half in dreams I sorrow after
.

The delight of early skies;
.

In a wakeful doze I sorrow
.

For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
.

For the meeting of the morrow,
.

The delight of happy laughter,
.

The delight of low replies.2.

'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
.

And a dewy splendour falls
.

On the little flower that clings
.

To the turrets and the walls;
.

'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
.

And the light and shadow fleet;
.

She is walking in the meadow,
.

And the woodland echo rings;
.

In a moment we shall meet;
.

She is singing in the meadow,
.

And the rivulet at her feet
.

Ripples on in light and shadow
.

To the ballad that she sings.2.

So I hear her sing as of old,
.

My bird with the shining head,
.

My own dove with the tender eye?
.

But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry,
.

There is some one dying or dead,
.

And a sullen thunder is roll'd;
.

For a tumult shakes the city,
.

And I wake, my dream is fled;
.

In the shuddering dawn, behold,
.

Without knowledge, without pity,
.

By the curtains of my bed
.

That abiding phantom cold.2.

Get thee hence, nor come again,
.

Mix not memory with doubt,
.

Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
.

Pass and cease to move about!
.

'Tis the blot upon the brain
.

That will show itself without.2.

Then I rise, the eave-drops fall,
.

And the yellow vapours choke
.

The great city sounding wide;
.

The day comes, a dull red ball
.

Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
.

On the misty river-tide.2.

Thro' the hubbub of the market
.

I steal, a wasted frame;
.

It crosses here, it crosses there,
.

Thro' all that crowd confused and loud,
.

The shadow still the same;
.

And on my heavy eyelids
.

My anguish hangs like shame.2.

Alas for her that met me,
.

That heard me softly call,
.

Came glimmering thro' the laurels
.

At the quiet evenfall,
.

In the garden by the turrets
.

Of the old manorial hall.2.

Would the happy spirit descend
.

From the realms of light and song,
.

In the chamber or the street,
.

As she looks among the blest,
.

Should I fear to greet my friend
.

Or to say "Forgive the wrong,"
.

Or to ask her, "Take me, sweet,
.

To the regions of thy rest"?2.