Stanza 3 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

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

The third stanza has our lady waking up in the middle of the night because of a bird's cry.
Apparently, she's stayed awake until the rooster cried in the morning. Was she binge watching Netflix?
Unlikely—we can safely assume she was crying. It's just about all she does, after all.
She also hears the oxen make their morning noises. We hope she hired someone to feed those oxen, because it doesn't seem like she goes outside much.

Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.

Mariana has no hope, but why?
It's because she doesn't think anything will ever change. She's convinced she'll be missing her fella and wandering around forever.
She's so "forlorn" that she feels like a sleepwalker.
In a couple imagery-rich lines, we see that the landscape around her matches her mood.
It's all cold, gloomy, and lonely—that's more pathetic fallacy for ya.

   She only said, "The day is dreary,
    He cometh not," she said;
    She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
    I would that I were dead!"

We're back to the refrain again. But this time, instead of "life" or "night" we have "day."
That makes sense. This stanza was about the daylight hours, after all.
It seems that there's no hour that isn't affected by her sorrow. Mariana's days, her nights, and her whole life are one monotonous sleepwalk.
The form of the poem supports this dreamlike state: things keep repeating, over and over, as if time doesn't really exist in Mariana's world. (Check out "Form and Meter" for more.)
She knows that tomorrow will be just as hopeless as the next day.
Is she asking for death to rescue her from despair? Let's read on to find out…

About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.

A short distance from the wall (a "stone-cast" or a stone's throw) there's a little area where water passes. That would be the moat, like in a fairy tale—except this princess is waiting for a prince that doesn't seem to be coming.
The waters are dark, just like everything else in this landscape.
To top things off, moss grows all around the wall.
Is it just us, or is Tennyson spending a lot of time establishing a moody setting, one that matches the mood of our Mariana?
Hint: it's not just us. The pathetic fallacy is strong with this one.

Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.

A poplar tree with some gnarly bark shakes in the wind. There are no other trees around.
The speaker calls the land "waste" and describes it as gray. Ever watch an old black-and-white movie? It's kind of like that. All the color (and the joy) has been removed from the picture.
But why?
It's because the woman who is seeing the landscape is sad.
The poplar tree is a symbol of her loneliness. It grows alone, like she does—sniff.

   She only said, "My life is dreary,
    He cometh not," she said;
    She said "I am aweary, aweary
    I would that I were dead!"

Yep, you guessed it, Shmoopers: it's that same old refrain again.
This time, we've returned to "life" being dreary, instead of "night" or "day."
We get it. Who wouldn't be weary, after an exhausting and repetitive cycle like the one the Mariana is experiencing?
And that's part of the reason the refrain is so effective: it establishes the hopeless tone of the poem.
It also creates the sense that time keeps passing for everyone but Mariana. No matter what happens, she'll be back to her same old tune.
Sheesh—depressing, much?