5

10

ADONAIS

(1821)

I.

I weep for Adonais-he is dead!

Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow; Say: "With

me

Died Adonais; till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!"

II.

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies

In darkness? where was lorn Urania

When Adonais died? With veilèd eyes,

'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise

15 She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,

20

Rekindled all the fading melodies,

With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,

He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

III.

Oh, weep for Adonais-he is dead!

Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning

bed

Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep

25

30

35

40

Like his a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone where all things wise and fair
Descend. Oh, dream not that the amorous
Deep

Will yet restore him to the vital air;

Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

IV.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania!-He died,

Who was the sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide

Trampled and mocked with many a loathèd rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,

Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite Yet reigns o'er earth, the third among the sons of light.

V.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!

Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of

time

In which suns perished; others more sublime, Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 45 Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

VI.

But now, thy youngest,

perished,

dearest one has

The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished
And fed with true-love tears instead of dew;

50

55

60

65

70

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals, nipt before they blew,
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies-the storm is overpast.

VII.

To that high Capital, where kingly Death
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
He came; and bought, with price of purest
breath,

A grave among the eternal.-Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.

VIII.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness and the law
Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain
draw.

IX.

Oh, weep for Adonais!-The quick Dreams,
The passion-wingèd ministers of thought,

75 Who were his flocks, whom near the living

streams

Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught

80

The love which was its music, wander not,-
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
But droop there, whence they sprung; and
mourn their lot

Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet
pain,

They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.

X.

85

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold

head,

And fans him with her moonlight wings, and

cries,

"Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;
See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,
Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies
A tear some Dream has loosened from his
brain."

Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!

She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain 90 She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

95

XI.

One from a lucid urn of starry dew

Washed his light limbs as if embalming them;
Another clipt her profuse locks, and threw
The wreath upon him, like an anadem,
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;
Another in her wilful grief would break
Her bow and wingèd reeds, as if to stem
A greater loss with one which was more weak;
And dull the barbèd fire against his frozen cheek.

100

XII.

Another Splendour on his mouth alit,

That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the

breath

Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded
wit,

And pass into the panting heart beneath
With lightning and with music: the damp
death

105 Quenched its caress upon his icy lips;
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath

Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, It flushed through his pale limbs, and past to its eclipse.

XIII.

And others came

110

115

120

Desires and Adorations,
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,
Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering In-
carnations

Of hopes and fears, and twilight Fantasies;
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the
gleam

Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,
Came in slow pomp;-the moving pomp might

seem

Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.

XIV.

All he had loved, and molded into thought, From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,

Lamented Adonais. Morning sought

Her eastern watch tower, and her hair unbound,