Teach me half the gladness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. I weep for Adonais - he is dead! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 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 enamored 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! 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 The priest, the slave, and the liberticide Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite V Most musical of mourners, weep anew! Not all to that bright station dared to climb: Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode. VI But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished, Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last, VII To that high Capital, where kingly Death Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, He came; and bought, with price of purest breath, A grave among the eternal. Come away! Haste, while the vault of b'ue Italian day Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay; Awake him not! surely he takes his fill Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. VIII He will awake no more, oh, never more! Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw, IX Oh, weep for Adonais! - The quick Dreams, Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 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, A tear some dream hath loosened from his brain." She knew not 't was her own, as with no stain XI One from a lucid urn of starry dew Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them; XII Another Splendor on his mouth alit, That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath it strength to pierce the guarded wit, Which gave And pass into the panting heart beneath With lightning and with music; the damp death And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath Of moonlight vapor, which the cold night clips, It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse. XIII And others came, - Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies. 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 odor, and sweet sound, Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. |