All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak’d; The blue fly sung in the pane;[8] the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d, Or from the crevice peer’d about. Old faces glimmer’d thro’ 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!” 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 Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping[9] toward his western bower. Then, said she, “I am very dreary, He will not come,” she said; She wept, “I am aweary, aweary, O God, that I were dead!” [1] 1863. Pear. [2] 1872. Gable-wall. [3] With this beautiful couplet may be compared a couplet of Helvius Cinna:— Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous, Te flentem paullo vidit post Hesperus idem. (_Cinnae Reliq._ Ed. Mueller, p. 83.) [4] 1830. _Grey_-eyed. _Cf. Romeo and Juliet_, ii., 3, “The _grey morn_ smiles on the frowning night”. [5] 1830, 1842, 1843. Dark. [6] 1830. Grey. [7] 1830. An’ away. [8] All editions before 1851. I’ the pane. With this line _cf. Maud_, I., vi., 8, “and the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse”. [9] 1830. Downsloped was westering in his bower. To—— First printed in 1830. The friend to whom these verses were addressed was Joseph William Blakesley, third Classic and Senior Chancellor’s Medallist in 1831, and afterwards Dean of Lincoln. Tennyson said of him: “He ought to be Lord Chancellor, for he is a subtle and powerful reasoner, and an honest man”.—_Life_, i., 65. He was a contributor to the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_, and died in April, 1885. See memoir of him in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. 1 Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain The knots that tangle human creeds,[1] The wounding cords that[2] bind and strain The heart until it bleeds, Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn Roof not a glance so keen as thine: If aught of prophecy be mine, Thou wilt not live in vain. 2 Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit; Falsehood shall bear her plaited brow: Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords Can do away that ancient lie; A gentler death shall Falsehood die, Shot thro’ and thro’[3] with cunning words. 3 Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch, Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need, Thy kingly intellect shall feed, Until she be an athlete bold, And weary with a finger’s touch Those writhed limbs of lightning speed; Like that strange angel[4] which of old, Until the breaking of the light, Wrestled with wandering Israel, Past Yabbok brook the livelong night, And heaven’s mazed signs stood still In the dim tract of Penuel.