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The Earth.

I spin beneath my pyramid of night,

Which points into the heavens dreaming delight, Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep ; As a youth lull'd in love-dreams faintly sighing, Under the shadow of his beauty lying,

Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth keep.

The Moon.

As in the soft and sweet eclipse,

When soul meets soul on lovers' lips,

High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull; So, when thy shadow falls on me,

Then am I mute and still, by thee
Cover'd of thy love, orb most beautiful,
Full, oh, too full!

Thou art speeding round the sun,
Brightest world of many a one;
Green and azure sphere which shinest
With a light which is divinest
Among all the lamps of heaven
To whom life and light is given :
I, thy crystal paramour,
Borne beside thee by a power
Like the polar paradise,
Magnet-like, of lovers' eyes;
I, a most enamour'd maiden,
Whose weak brain is overladen
With the pleasure of her love,
Maniac-like, around thee move
Gazing, an insatiate bride,
On thy form from every side,

Like a Mænad, round the cup
Which Agave lifted up

In the weird Cadmæan forest.
Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest
I must hurry, whirl and follow
Through the heavens wide and hollow,
Shelter'd by the warm embrace

Of thy soul from hungry space,
Drinking from thy sense and sight
Beauty, majesty, and might,

As a lover, or cameleon

Grows like what it looks upon;
As a violet's gentle eye

Gazes on the azure sky

Until its hue grows like what it beholds

As a grey and watery mist

Glows like solid amethyst

Athwart the western mountain it enfolds

When the sunset sleeps

Upon its snow.

Id. IV.

THE ELEGY OF ELEGIES.

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 fame and fate shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!

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,

'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise

She sate, while one, with soft enamour'd breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies

With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, He had adorn'd and hid the coming bulk of death.

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,
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.

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 mock'd with many a loathed 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.

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 perish'd; others, more sublime,

FF

Struck by the envious wrath of man or god, Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; And some yet live, treading the thorny road Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perish'd,
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower, by some sad maiden cherish'd,
And fed with true love tears instead of dew:
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.

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.

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.

And others came,- Desires and Adorations,
Winged Persuasions, and veil'd Destinies,

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations

Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies,

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.

All he had loved, and moulded into thought, From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, Lamented Adonais. Morning sought

Her eastern watch-tower, and, her hair unbound, Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, Dimm'd the aërial eyes that kindle day :

Afar the melancholy thunder moan'd,

Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,

And the wild winds flew around, sobbing in their dismay.

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,
And feeds her grief with his remember'd lay,
And will no more reply to winds or fountains,
Or amorous birds perch'd on the young green spray,
Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day;

Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear
Than those for whose disdain they pined away
Into a shadow of all sounds -a drear

Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.

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See the beautiful story of the Nymph Echo and her fatal love for Narcissus, whose voice she is condemned by the vengeance of Juno to vainly repeat while she madly pursues him, until she pines away and is metamorphosed into the shadow of all sounds.' (Ovid. Metam. iii. 6.)

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