Description
W.E.F. Britten - The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Mariana.jpg
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English:
Illustration to
Tennyson's
"
Mariana
" by
W. E. F. Britten
. This is one of Tennyson's poems that takes a literary work, describes an emotional star in the middle of it, then ends before it's resolved. This one is based on
Measure for Measure
.
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With blackest moss the flower-pots
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Were thickly crusted, one and all;
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The rusted nails fell from the knots
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That held the pear to the gable wall.
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The broken sheds look'd sad and strange;
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Unlifted was the clinking latch:
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Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
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Upon the lonely moated grange.
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She only said, 'My life is dreary,
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He cometh not,' she said;
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She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
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I would that I were dead!'
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Her tears fell with the dews at even;
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Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
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She could not look on the sweet heaven,
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Either at morn or eventide.
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After the flitting of bats,
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When thickest dark did trance the sky,
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She drew her casement-curtain by,
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And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
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She only said, 'The night is dreary,
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He cometh not,' she said;
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She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
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I would that I were dead!'
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Upon the middle of the night,
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Waking she heard the night-fowl crow;
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The cock sung out an hour ere light;
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From the dark fen the oxen's low
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Came to her: without hope of change,
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In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn,
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Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
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About the lonely moated grange.
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She only said, 'The day is dreary,
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He cometh not,' she said;
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She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
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I would that I were dead!'
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About a stone-cast from the wall
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A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
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And o'er it many, round and small,
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The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
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Hard by a poplar shook alway,
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All silver-green with gnarlèd bark:
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For leagues no other tree did mark
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The level waste, the rounding gray.
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She only said, 'My life is dreary,
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He cometh not,' she said;
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She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
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I would that I were dead!'
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And ever when the moon was low,
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And the shrill winds were up and away,
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In the white curtain, to and fro,
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She saw the gusty shadows sway.
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But when the moon was very low,
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And wild winds bound within their cell,
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The shadow of the poplar fell
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Upon her bed, across her brow.
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She only said, 'The night is dreary,
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He cometh not,' she said;
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She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
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I would that I were dead!'
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All day within the dreamy house,
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The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
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The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
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Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
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Or from the crevice peered about.
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Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
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Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
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Old voices called her from without.
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She only said, 'My life is dreary,
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He cometh not,' she said;
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She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
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I would that I were dead!'
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The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
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The slow clock ticking, and the sound,
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Which to the wooing wind aloof
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The poplar made, did all confound
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Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
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When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
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Athwart the chambers, and the day
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Was sloping toward his western bower.
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Then said she, 'I am very dreary,
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He will not come,' she said;
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She wept, 'I am aweary, aweary,
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O God, that I were dead!'
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