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.With blackest moss the flower-potsWere thickly crusted, one and all;The rusted nails fell from the knotsThat held the pear to the gable wall.The broken sheds look'd sad and strange;Unlifted was the clinking latch:Weeded and worn the ancient thatchUpon the lonely moated grange.She only said, 'My life is dreary,He cometh not,' she said;She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,I would that I were dead!' Her tears fell with the dews at even;Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;She could not look on the sweet heaven,Either at morn or eventide.After the flitting of bats,When thickest dark did trance the sky,She drew her casement-curtain by,And glanced athwart the glooming flats.She only said, 'The night is dreary,He cometh not,' she said;She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,I would that I were dead!' Upon the middle of the night,Waking she heard the night-fowl crow;The cock sung out an hour ere light;From the dark fen the oxen's lowCame to her: without hope of change,In sleep she seemed to walk forlorn,Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed mornAbout the lonely moated grange.She only said, 'The day is dreary,He cometh not,' she said;She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,I would that I were dead!' About a stone-cast from the wallA sluice with blacken'd waters slept,And o'er it many, round and small,The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.Hard by a poplar shook alway,All silver-green with gnarlèd bark:For leagues no other tree did markThe level waste, the rounding gray.She only said, 'My life is dreary,He cometh not,' she said;She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,I would that I were dead!' And ever when the moon was low,And the shrill winds were up and away,In the white curtain, to and fro,She saw the gusty shadows sway.But when the moon was very low,And wild winds bound within their cell,The shadow of the poplar fellUpon her bed, across her brow.She only said, 'The night is dreary,He cometh not,' she said;She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,I would that I were dead!' All day within the dreamy house,The doors upon their hinges creak'd;The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouseBehind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,Or from the crevice peered 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 aloofThe poplar made, did all confoundHer sense; but most she loathed the hourWhen the thick-moted sunbeam layAthwart the chambers, and the dayWas sloping 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!'