IDYL I. LAMENT FOR ADONIS. I AND and the Loves Adonis dead deplore: Departed, parted from us. Sleep no more All-wretched! beat thy breast and all aread Lament him. Oh! her grief to see him bleed, Smitten by white tooth on his whiter thigh, Out-breathing life's faint sigh upon the mountain high! Adown his snowy flesh drops the black gore; The rose is off his lip; Lives Cytherea's kiss with him no more - but with him dies. He knows not that her lip his cold lip tries, Deep is his thigh-wound; her's yet deeper lies, E'en in her heart. His hounds whine piteously; in most disordered trim Distraught, unkempt, unsandalled, Cypris rushes Her sacred blood is drawn by bramble-bushes; Whiteness beneath his paps the deep-red streaks appear. "Alas for Cypris !" sigh the Loves, " deprived Of her fair spouse, she lost her beauty's pride; But with Adonis all her beauty died." Mountains, and oaks, and streams, that broadly glide, Or wail or weep for her; in tearful rills For her gush fountains from the mountain-side; Redden the flowers from grief; city and hills With ditties sadly wild lorn Cytherea fills. Alas for Cypris! dead is her Adonis, And Echo "dead Adonis" doth resound. Who would not grieve for her whose love so lone is? But when she saw his cruel, cruel wound, The purple gore that ran his wan thigh round, She spread her arms, and lowly murmured: "stay thee, That I may find thee as before I found, My hapless own Adonis! and embay thee, And mingle lips with lips, whilst in my arms I lay thee. "Up for a little! kiss me back again The latest kiss - brief as itself that dies -- In being breathed, until I fondly drain The last breath of thy soul, and greedywise To guard it as Adonis - since from me To Acheron my own Adonis flies, And to the drear dread king; but I must be A goddess still and live, nor can I follow thee. "But thou, Persephona! my spouse receive, A A Of thee, and weep for him. My dearest dear! E'en as a dream. At home my widowed cheer Keeps the loves idle; with thy latest sigh My cestus perished too; thou rash one! why, oh why "Did'st hunt? so fair, contend with monsters grim?" Thus Cypris wailed; but dead Adonis lies; For every gout of blood that fell from him, She drops a tear; sweet flowers each dew supplies-Roses his blood, her tears anemonies. Cypris! no longer in the thickets weep; The couch is furnished! there in loving guise The lovely body lies how lovely! as in sleep. Come! in those vestments now array him, A sad yet lovely sight; and let him be High heaped with flowers; tho' withered all when he And ointments; let them perish utterly, Their curls are shorn: one breaks his bow; another His arrows and the quiver; this unstrings, And takes Adonis' sandal off; his brother In golden urn the fountain water brings ; This bathes his thighs; that fans him with his wings. The Loves," Alas for Cypris!" weeping say: Hymen hath quenched his torches; shreds and flings The marriage wreath away; and for the lay Of love is only heard the doleful "weal-away." Yet more than Hymen for Adonis weep The Graces; shriller than Dione vent Their shrieks; for him the Muses wail and keep To call him back: and would the nymph relent, Hush! hush! to-day, sad Cypris! and consent no more thy bosom tear For thou must wail again, and weep another year. |