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. 9. Oh weep for Adonais!-The quick Dreams, The passion-winged ministers of thought, Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 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. 10. And one with trembling hand 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 Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them; Her bow and wingèd reeds, as if to stem That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath With lightning and with music: the damp death And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath Of moonlight vapour which the cold night clips, It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse. 13. And others came,-Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam Came in slow pomp ;-the moving pomp might seem Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. 14. All he had loved, and moulded into thought Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, Afar the melancholy Thunder moaned, And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. 15. Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, Than those for whose disdain she pined away Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. 16. Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown, For whom should she have waked the sullen Year? Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both Thou, Adonais; wan they stand and sere With dew all turned to tears,-odour, to sighing ruth. 17. Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain; Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain But grief returns with the revolving year. The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier ; The amorous birds now pair in every brake, And build their mossy homes in field and brere; Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. 19. Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean, A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst, As it has ever done, with change and motion, God dawned on chaos. In its steam immersed, All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst, By sightless lightning? The intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 21. Alas that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow. As long as skies are blue and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. 22. He will awake no more, oh never more! "Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother! Rise Out of thy sleep, and slake in thy heart's core And all the Echoes whom their Sister's song Had held in holy silence, cried "Arise! Swift as a thought by the snake memory stung, Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear So struck, so roused, so rapt, Urania; So saddened round her like an atmosphere Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay, 24. Out of her secret paradise she sped, Through camps and cities rough with stone and steel Yielding not, wounded the invisible Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell. And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they, Whose sacred blood, like the Young tears of May, ! 25. In the death-chamber for a moment Death, Flashed through those limbs so late her dear delight. As silent lightning leaves the starless night! Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress. Of thee, my Adonais! I would give But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart. 27. "O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men Defenceless as thou wert, oh! where was then 29. The obscene ravens clamorous o'er the dead, The vultures to the conqueror's banner true, And whose wings rain contagion,-how they fled, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped, And smiled!--The spoilers tempt no second blow, Is gathered into death without a dawn, Making earth bare and veiling heaven; and, when The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, In sorrow. From her wilds Ierne sent And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. Whose thunder is its knell. He, as I guess, With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, À love in desolation masked-a power Girt round with weakness; it can scarce uplift And faded violets, white and pied and blue; Shook the weak hand that grasped it. Of that crew A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart. 24. All stood aloof, and at his partial moan Smiled through their tears. Well knew that gentle band As in the accents of an unknown land The Stranger's mien, and murmured "Who art thou?" Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, Which was like Cain's or Christ's-Oh! that it should be so! 35. What softer voice is hushed over the dead? Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown? What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, In mockery of monumental stone, The heavy heart heaving without a moan? If it be he who, gentlest of the wise, Taught, soothed, loved, honoured, the departed one, Let me not vex with inharmonious sighs The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. |