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; 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 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 |