How long I stayed alone
With the corpse I never knew,
For I fainted dead as stone: 
When I came to life once more
I was down upon the floor,
With neighbours making ado
To bring me back to life. 150
I heard the sexton’s wife
Say:  ’Up, my lad, and run
To tell it at the Hall;
She was my Lady’s nurse,
And done can’t be undone. 
I’ll watch by this poor lamb. 
I guess my Lady’s purse
Is always open to such: 
I’d run up on my crutch
A cripple as I am,’ 160
(For cramps had vexed her much)
’Rather than this dear heart
Lack one to take her part.’

For days day after day
On my weary bed I lay
Wishing the time would pass;
Oh, so wishing that I was
Likely to pass away: 
For the one friend whom I knew
Was dead, I knew no other, 170
Neither father nor mother;
And I, what should I do?

One day the sexton’s wife
Said:  ’Rouse yourself, my dear: 
My Lady has driven down
From the Hall into the town,
And we think she’s coming here. 
Cheer up, for life is life.’

But I would not look or speak,
Would not cheer up at all. 180
My tears were like to fall,
So I turned round to the wall
And hid my hollow cheek
Making as if I slept,
As silent as a stone,
And no one knew I wept. 
What was my Lady to me,
The grand lady from the Hall? 
She might come, or stay away,
I was sick at heart that day:  190
The whole world seemed to be
Nothing, just nothing to me,
For aught that I could see.

Yet I listened where I lay: 
A bustle came below,
A clear voice said:  ’I know;
I will see her first alone,
It may be less of a shock
If she’s so weak to-day:’—­
A light hand turned the lock, 200
A light step crossed the floor,
One sat beside my bed: 
But never a word she said.

For me, my shyness grew
Each moment more and more: 
So I said never a word
And neither looked nor stirred;
I think she must have heard
My heart go pit-a-pat: 
Thus I lay, my Lady sat, 210
More than a mortal hour—­
(I counted one and two
By the house-clock while I lay): 
I seemed to have no power
To think of a thing to say,
Or do what I ought to do,
Or rouse myself to a choice.

At last she said:  ’Margaret,
Won’t you even look at me?’
A something in her voice 220
Forced my tears to fall at last,
Forced sobs from me thick and fast;
Something not of the past,
Yet stirring memory;
A something new, and yet
Not new, too sweet to last,
Which I never can forget.