Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere Amid the faint companions of their youth, With dew all turned to tears; odor, to sighing ruth. Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain; Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest! Ah, woe is me! winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year. The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear; Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead season's bier; The amorous birds now pair in every brake, And build their mossy homes in field and brere; And the green lizard, and the golden snake, Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean As it has ever done, with change and motion, All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst— The leprous corpse touched by this spirit tender Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death. 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 The actors or spectators? Great and mean 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. 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, A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs." And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes, 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, From her ambrosial rest the fading splendor sprung. She rose like an autumnal night, that springs Had left the earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear So saddened round her like an atmosphere Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. Out of her secret paradise she sped, Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel, And human hearts, which to her airy tread Yielding not, wounded the invisible Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell: And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they, Rent the soft form they never could repel, Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. In the death chamber for a moment Death, Blushed to annihilation, and the breath Revisited those lips, and life's pale light Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight. "Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, As silent lightning leaves the starless night! XXIII-831 Leave me not!" cried Urania: her distress Roused Death; Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress. Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again; Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live: And in my heartless breast and burning brain That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive, Now thou art dead, as if it were a part Of thee, my Adonais! I would give All that I am to be as thou now art! But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart! "O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart Dare the unpastured dragon in his den? Defenseless as thou wert, oh where was then Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer. "The herded wolves, bold only to pursue; The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead; The vultures to the conqueror's banner true Who feed where Desolation first has fed, And whose wings rain contagion;-how they fled, When like Apollo, from his golden bow, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped And smiled! The spoilers tempt no second blow, They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low. "The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn; He sets, and each ephemeral insect then Is gathered into death without a dawn, Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came, Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent; The pilgrim of eternity, whose fame. Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow; from her wilds Ierne sent The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. Midst others of less note, came one frail form, A phantom among men; companionless As the last cloud of an expiring storm Whose thunder is its knell: he, as I guess, Had gazed on nature's naked loveliness, Actæon-like, and now he fled astray With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, A pardlike spirit beautiful and swift; A Love in desolation masked; - a power Is it not broken? On the withering flower The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break. His head was bound with pansies overblown, Shook the weak hand that grasped it: of that crew A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart. All stood aloof, and at his partial moan Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band Who in another's fate now wept his own: 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! 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, honored the departed one, Our Adonais has drunk poison - oh! What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame! Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me, as now. Nor let us weep that our delight is fled Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now.- Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep; |