Woe is me! The winged words on which my soul would pierce Are chains of lead around its flight of fire-- Weak verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave." Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest, And bid them love each other, and be blessed : And leave the troop which errs and which reproves, And come and be my guest-for I am Love's. ̓Αστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζώοισιν έπος. ADONAIS. 1. 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." 2. 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 veiled eyes, She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of Death. 3. Oh! weep for Adonais-he is dead! Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!- Descend. Oh! dream not that the amorous deep Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. 4. 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 Yet reigns o'er earth, the third among the Sons of Light. 5. 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; The bloom whose petals, nipped before they blew, 7. To that high Capital where kingly Death Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay Within the twilight chamber spreads apace His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place; Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. 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 She knew not 'twas her own, -as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. II. One from a lucid urn of starry dew Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them; Her bow and wingèd reeds, as if to stem 12. Another Splendour on his mouth alit, That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath 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, Than those for whose disdain she pined away Into a shadow of all sounds :-a drear 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. 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, |