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!"

II

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 enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies,

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

III

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.

IV

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

V

ost musical of mourners, weep anew!
ot all to that bright station dared to climb :
nd happier they their happiness who knew,
hose tapers yet burn through that night of time
which suns perished; others more sublime,
truck by the envious wrath of man or God,
ave sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
nd some yet live, treading the thorny road,

ch leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

VI

ut now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished,
he nursling of thy widowhood, who grew

ke a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,
nd fed with true love tears instead of dew;
ost musical of mourners, weep anew!

hy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,
he bloom, whose petals, nipt before they blew,
ied on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
broken lily dies - the storm is overpast.

VII

o that high Capital, where kingly Death
eeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
e came; and bought, with price of purest breath,
grave among the eternal. Come away!

aste, while the vault of blue Italian day
yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still
e lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ;
wake him not! surely he takes his fill
leep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.

VIII

e will awake no more, oh, never more! ithin the twilight chamber spreads apace he 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.

IX

Oh, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams,

The passion-wingèd Ministers of thought,

Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams

Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
The love which was its music, wander not, -

Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,

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, nor find a home again.

X

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

A tear some dream hath loosened from his brain."
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!

She knew not 't was her own, as with no stain
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

XI

One from a lucid urn of starry dew

Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them;
Another clipped her profuse locks, and threw
The wreath upon him, like an anadem,
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;
Another in her wilful grief would break
Her bow and wingèd reeds, as if to stem

A greater loss with one which was more weak;
And dull the barbèd fire against his frozen cheek.

With lightning and with music; the damp death
Quenched its caress upon its icy lips;

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath

Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, t flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

XIII

And others came, Desires and Adorations,
Winged Persuasions and veiled 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.

XIV

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,
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day;

Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,

Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,

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

XV

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,
And will no more reply to winds or fountains,
Or amorous birds perched 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 she pined away
Into a shadow of all sounds :- a drear

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

XVI

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?
To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear,

Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both

Thou, Adonais ; wan they stand and sere
Amid the faint companions of their youth,
With dew all turned to tears, odour to sighing ruth.

XVII

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!

XVIII

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 Seasons' 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.

XIX

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,
From the great morning of the world when first