# W.E.F. Britten - The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Mariana

- By: William Edward Frank Britten (1848–1916)
- Date: 1901
- Classification: Photograph
- Credit line: The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Edited with a Critical Introduction, Commentaries and Notes, together with the Various Readings, a Transcript of the Poems Temporarily and Finally Suppressed and a Bibliography by John Churton…
- Museum: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:W.E.F._Britten_-_The_Early_Poems_of_Alfred,_Lord_Tennyson_-_Mariana.jpg)
- Rights: Public domain
- Picture: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/W.E.F._Britten_-_The_Early_Poems_of_Alfred%2C_Lord_Tennyson_-_Mariana.jpg/1920px-W.E.F._Britten_-_The_Early_Poems_of_Alfred%2C_Lord_Tennyson_-_Mariana.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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-pots Were thickly crusted, one and all; The rusted nails fell from the knots That 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 thatch Upon 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 low…