shelley percy b adonais


I

1 I weep for Adonais--he is dead!

2 Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears

3 Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

4 And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years

5 To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,

6 And teach them thine own sorrow, say: "With me

7 Died Adonais; till the Future dares

8 Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be

9 An echo and a light unto eternity!"

II

10 Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,

11 When thy Son lay, pierc'd by the shaft which flies

12 In darkness? where was lorn Urania

13 When Adonais died? With veiled eyes,

14 'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise

15 She sate, while one, with soft enamour'd breath,

16 Rekindled all the fading melodies,

17 With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,

18 He had adorn'd and hid the coming bulk of Death

III

19 Oh, weep for Adonais--he is dead!

20 Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!

21 Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed

22 Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep

23 Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;

24 For he is gone, where all things wise and fair

25 Descend--oh, dream not that the amorous Deep

26 Will yet restore him to the vital air;

27 Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

IV

28 Most musical of mourners, weep again!

29 Lament anew, Urania! He died,

30 Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,

31 Blind, old and lonely, when his country's pride,

32 The priest, the slave and the liberticide,

33 Trampled and mock'd with many a loathed rite

34 Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,

35 Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite

36 Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.

V

37 Most musical of mourners, weep anew!

38 Not all to that bright station dar'd to climb;

39 And happier they their happiness who knew,

40 Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time

41 In which suns perish'd; others more sublime,

42 Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,

43 Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;

44 And some yet live, treading the thorny road,

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

VI

46 But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perish'd,

47 The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,

48 Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherish'd,

49 And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;

50 Most musical of mourners, weep anew!

51 Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,

52 The bloom, whose petals nipp'd before they blew

53 Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;

54 The broken lily lies--the storm is overpast.

VII

55 To that high Capital, where kingly Death

56 Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,

57 He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,

58 A grave among the eternal.--Come away!

59 Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day

60 Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still

61 He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;

62 Awake him not! surely he takes his fill

63 Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.

VIII

64 He will awake no more, oh, never more!

65 Within the twilight chamber spreads apace

66 The shadow of white Death, and at the door

67 Invisible Corruption waits to trace

68 His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;

69 The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe

70 Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface

71 So fair a prey, till darkness and the law

72 Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.

IX

73 Oh, weep for Adonais! The quick Dreams,

74 The passion-winged Ministers of thought,

75 Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams

76 Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught

77 The love which was its music, wander not--

78 Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,

79 But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot

80 Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,

81 They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.

X

82 And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head,

83 And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries,

84 "Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead;

85 See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes,

86 Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies

87 A tear some Dream has loosen'd from his brain."

88 Lost Angel of a ruin'd Paradise!

89 She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain

90 She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

XI

91 One from a lucid urn of starry dew

92 Wash'd his light limbs as if embalming them;

93 Another clipp'd her profuse locks, and threw

94 The wreath upon him, like an anadem,

95 Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;

96 Another in her wilful grief would break

97 Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem

98 A greater loss with one which was more weak;

99 And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek.

XII

100 Another Splendour on his mouth alit,

101 That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath

102 Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,

103 And pass into the panting heart beneath

104 With lightning and with music: the damp death

105 Quench'd its caress upon his icy lips;

106 And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath

107 Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,

108 It flush'd through his pale limbs, and pass'd to its eclipse.

XIII

109 And others came . . . Desires and Adorations,

110 Winged Persuasions and veil'd Destinies,

111 Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations

112 Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;

113 And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,

114 And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam

115 Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,

116 Came in slow pomp; the moving pomp might seem

117 Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.

XIV

118 All he had lov'd, and moulded into thought,

119 From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,

120 Lamented Adonais. Morning sought

121 Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,

122 Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,

123 Dimm'd the aëreal eyes that kindle day;

124 Afar the melancholy thunder moan'd,

125 Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,

126 And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.

XV

127 Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,

128 And feeds her grief with his remember'd lay,

129 And will no more reply to winds or fountains,

130 Or amorous birds perch'd on the young green spray,

131 Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day;

132 Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear

133 Than those for whose disdain she pin'd away

134 Into a shadow of all sounds: a drear

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

XVI

136 Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down

137 Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were,

138 Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown,

139 For whom should she have wak'd the sullen year?

140 To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear

141 Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both

142 Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere

143 Amid the faint companions of their youth,

144 With dew all turn'd to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.

XVII

145 Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale

146 Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain;

147 Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale

148 Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain

149 Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain,

150 Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,

151 As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain

152 Light on his head who pierc'd thy innocent breast,

153 And scar'd the angel soul that was its earthly guest!

XVIII

154 Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone,

155 But grief returns with the revolving year;

156 The airs and streams renew their joyous tone;

157 The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear;

158 Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier;

159 The amorous birds now pair in every brake,

160 And build their mossy homes in field and brere;

161 And the green lizard, and the golden snake,

162 Like unimprison'd flames, out of their trance awake.

XIX

163 Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean

164 A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst

165 As it has ever done, with change and motion,

166 From the great morning of the world when first

167 God dawn'd on Chaos; in its stream immers'd,

168 The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light;

169 All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst;

170 Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight,

171 The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.

XX

172 The leprous corpse, touch'd by this spirit tender,

173 Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;

174 Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour

175 Is chang'd to fragrance, they illumine death

176 And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath;

177 Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows

178 Be as a sword consum'd before the sheath

179 By sightless lightning?--the intense atom glows

180 A moment, then is quench'd in a most cold repose.

XXI

181 Alas! that all we lov'd of him should be,

182 But for our grief, as if it had not been,

183 And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!

184 Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene

185 The actors or spectators? Great and mean

186 Meet mass'd in death, who lends what life must borrow.

187 As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,

188 Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,

189 Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

XXII

190 He will awake no more, oh, never more!

191 "Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, rise

192 Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core,

193 A wound more fierce than his, with tears and sighs."

194 And all the Dreams that watch'd Urania's eyes,

195 And all the Echoes whom their sister's song

196 Had held in holy silence, cried: "Arise!"

197 Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,

198 From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.

XXIII

199 She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs

200 Out of the East, and follows wild and drear

201 The golden Day, which, on eternal wings,

202 Even as a ghost abandoning a bier,

203 Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear

204 So struck, so rous'd, so rapt Urania;

205 So sadden'd round her like an atmosphere

206 Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way

207 Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay.

XXIV

217 In the death-chamber for a moment Death,

218 Sham'd by the presence of that living Might,

219 Blush'd to annihilation, and the breath

220 Revisited those lips, and Life's pale light

221 Flash'd through those limbs, so late her dear delight.

222 "Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,

223 As silent lightning leaves the starless night!

224 Leave me not!" cried Urania: her distress

225 Rous'd Death: Death rose and smil'd, and met her vain caress.

XXV

217 In the death-chamber for a moment Death,

218 Sham'd by the presence of that living Might,

219 Blush'd to annihilation, and the breath

220 Revisited those lips, and Life's pale light

221 Flash'd through those limbs, so late her dear delight.

222 "Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,

223 As silent lightning leaves the starless night!

224 Leave me not!" cried Urania: her distress

225 Rous'd Death: Death rose and smil'd, and met her vain caress.

XXVI

226 "Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again;

227 Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live;

228 And in my heartless breast and burning brain

229 That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,

230 With food of saddest memory kept alive,

231 Now thou art dead, as if it were a part

232 Of thee, my Adonais! I would give

233 All that I am to be as thou now art!

234 But I am chain'd to Time, and cannot thence depart!

XXVII

235 "O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,

236 Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men

237 Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart

238 Dare the unpastur'd dragon in his den?

239 Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then

240 Wisdom the mirror'd shield, or scorn the spear?

241 Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when

242 Thy spirit should have fill'd its crescent sphere,

243 The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer.

XXVIII

244 "The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;

245 The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead;

246 The vultures to the conqueror's banner true

247 Who feed where Desolation first has fed,

248 And whose wings rain contagion; how they fled,

249 When, like Apollo, from his golden bow

250 The Pythian of the age one arrow sped

251 And smil'd! The spoilers tempt no second blow,

252 They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.

XXIX

253 "The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;

254 He sets, and each ephemeral insect then

255 Is gather'd into death without a dawn,

256 And the immortal stars awake again;

257 So is it in the world of living men:

258 A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight

259 Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when

260 It sinks, the swarms that dimm'd or shar'd its light

261 Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night."

XXX

262 Thus ceas'd she: and the mountain shepherds came,

263 Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;

264 The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame

265 Over his living head like Heaven is bent,

266 An early but enduring monument,

267 Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song

268 In sorrow; from her wilds Ierne sent

269 The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,

270 And Love taught Grief to fall like music from his tongue.

XXXI

271 Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,

272 A phantom among men; companionless

273 As the last cloud of an expiring storm

274 Whose thunder is its knell; he, as I guess,

275 Had gaz'd on Nature's naked loveliness,

276 Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray

277 With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness,

278 And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,

279 Pursu'd, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.

XXXII

280 A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift--

281 A Love in desolation mask'd--a Power

282 Girt round with weakness--it can scarce uplift

283 The weight of the superincumbent hour;

284 It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,

285 A breaking billow; even whilst we speak

286 Is it not broken? On the withering flower

287 The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek

288 The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.

XXXIII

289 His head was bound with pansies overblown,

290 And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;

291 And a light spear topp'd with a cypress cone,

292 Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew

293 Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew,

294 Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart

295 Shook the weak hand that grasp'd it; of that crew

296 He came the last, neglected and apart;

297 A herd-abandon'd deer struck by the hunter's dart.

XXXIV

298 All stood aloof, and at his partial moan

299 Smil'd through their tears; well knew that gentle band

300 Who in another's fate now wept his own,

301 As in the accents of an unknown land

302 He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scann'd

303 The Stranger's mien, and murmur'd: "Who art thou?"

304 He answer'd not, but with a sudden hand

305 Made bare his branded and ensanguin'd brow,

306 Which was like Cain's or Christ's--oh! that it should be so!

XXXV

307 What softer voice is hush'd over the dead?

308 Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?

309 What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed,

310 In mockery of monumental stone,

311 The heavy heart heaving without a moan?

312 If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,

313 Taught, sooth'd, lov'd, honour'd the departed one,

314 Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs,

315 The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice.

XXXVI

316 Our Adonais has drunk poison--oh!

317 What deaf and viperous murderer could crown

318 Life's early cup with such a draught of woe?

319 The nameless worm would now itself disown:

320 It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone

321 Whose prelude held all envy, hate and wrong,

322 But what was howling in one breast alone,

323 Silent with expectation of the song,

324 Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung.

XXXVII

325 Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame!

326 Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,

327 Thou noteless blot on a remember'd name!

328 But be thyself, and know thyself to be!

329 And ever at thy season be thou free

330 To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow;

331 Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee;

332 Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow,

333 And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt--as now.

XXXVIII

334 Nor let us weep that our delight is fled

335 Far from these carrion kites that scream below;

336 He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;

337 Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now.

338 Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow

339 Back to the burning fountain whence it came,

340 A portion of the Eternal, which must glow

341 Through time and change, unquenchably the same,

342 Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

XXXIX

343 Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep,

344 He hath awaken'd from the dream of life;

345 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep

346 With phantoms an unprofitable strife,

347 And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife

348 Invulnerable nothings. We decay

349 Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief

350 Convulse us and consume us day by day,

351 And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

XL

352 He has outsoar'd the shadow of our night;

353 Envy and calumny and hate and pain,

354 And that unrest which men miscall delight,

355 Can touch him not and torture not again;

356 From the contagion of the world's slow stain

357 He is secure, and now can never mourn

358 A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;

359 Nor, when the spirit's self has ceas'd to burn,

360 With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

XLI

361 He lives, he wakes--'tis Death is dead, not he;

362 Mourn not for Adonais. Thou young Dawn,

363 Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee

364 The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;

365 Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!

366 Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air,

367 Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown

368 O'er the abandon'd Earth, now leave it bare

369 Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair!

XLII

370 He is made one with Nature: there is heard

371 His voice in all her music, from the moan

372 Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird;

373 He is a presence to be felt and known

374 In darkness and in light, from herb and stone,

375 Spreading itself where'er that Power may move

376 Which has withdrawn his being to its own;

377 Which wields the world with never-wearied love,

378 Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.

XLIII

379 He is a portion of the loveliness

380 Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear

381 His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress

382 Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there

383 All new successions to the forms they wear;

384 Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight

385 To its own likeness, as each mass may bear;

386 And bursting in its beauty and its might

387 From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light.

XLIV

388 The splendours of the firmament of time

389 May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not;

390 Like stars to their appointed height they climb,

391 And death is a low mist which cannot blot

392 The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought

393 Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,

394 And love and life contend in it for what

395 Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there

396 And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

XLV

397 The inheritors of unfulfill'd renown

398 Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought,

399 Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton

400 Rose pale, his solemn agony had not

401 Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought

402 And as he fell and as he liv'd and lov'd

403 Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot,

404 Arose; and Lucan, by his death approv'd:

405 Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reprov'd.

XLVI

406 And many more, whose names on Earth are dark,

407 But whose transmitted effluence cannot die

408 So long as fire outlives the parent spark,

409 Rose, rob'd in dazzling immortality.

410 "Thou art become as one of us," they cry,

411 "It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long

412 Swung blind in unascended majesty,

413 Silent alone amid a Heaven of Song.

414 Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!"

XLVII

415 Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth,

416 Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright.

417 Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth;

418 As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light

419 Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might

420 Satiate the void circumference: then shrink

421 Even to a point within our day and night;

422 And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink

423 When hope has kindled hope, and lur'd thee to the brink.

XLVIII

424 Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre,

425 Oh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis nought

426 That ages, empires and religions there

427 Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought;

428 For such as he can lend--they borrow not

429 Glory from those who made the world their prey;

430 And he is gather'd to the kings of thought

431 Who wag'd contention with their time's decay,

432 And of the past are all that cannot pass away.

XLIX

433 Go thou to Rome--at once the Paradise,

434 The grave, the city, and the wilderness;

435 And where its wrecks like shatter'd mountains rise,

436 And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress

437 The bones of Desolation's nakedness

438 Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead

439 Thy footsteps to a slope of green access

440 Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead

441 A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread;

L

442 And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time

443 Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;

444 And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,

445 Pavilioning the dust of him who plann'd

446 This refuge for his memory, doth stand

447 Like flame transform'd to marble; and beneath,

448 A field is spread, on which a newer band

449 Have pitch'd in Heaven's smile their camp of death,

450 Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguish'd breath.

LI

451 Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet

452 To have outgrown the sorrow which consign'd

453 Its charge to each; and if the seal is set,

454 Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind,

455 Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find

456 Thine own well full, if thou returnest home,

457 Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind

458 Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.

459 What Adonais is, why fear we to become?

LII

460 The One remains, the many change and pass;

461 Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;

462 Life, like a dome of many-colour'd glass,

463 Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

464 Until Death tramples it to fragments.--Die,

465 If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!

466 Follow where all is fled!--Rome's azure sky,

467 Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak

468 The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

LIII

469 Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?

470 Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here

471 They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!

472 A light is pass'd from the revolving year,

473 And man, and woman; and what still is dear

474 Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.

475 The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near:

476 'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,

477 No more let Life divide what Death can join together.

LIV

478 That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,

479 That Beauty in which all things work and move,

480 That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse

481 Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love

482 Which through the web of being blindly wove

483 By man and beast and earth and air and sea,

484 Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of

485 The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,

486 Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

LV

487 The breath whose might I have invok'd in song

488 Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,

489 Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng

490 Whose sails were never to the tempest given;

491 The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!

492 I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;

493 Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,

494 The soul of Adonais, like a star,

495 Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.



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