XXVII. "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? Defenceless 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. XXVIII. "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. XXIX. "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." XXX. 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 The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. XXXI. 'Midst others of less note came one frail form, With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift A love in desolation masked-a power The life can burn in blood even while the heart may break. XXXIII. His head was bound with pansies overblown, Shook the weak hand that grasped it. Of that crew He came the last, neglected and apart; A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart. XXXIV. 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 He sang new sorrow, sad Urania scanned The Stranger's mien, and murmured "Who art thou?" He answered not, but with a sudden hand Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, Which was like Cain's or Christ's-Oh! that it should be so ! XXXV. 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, honoured, the departed one, Let me not vex with inharmonious sighs The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. XXXVI. Our Adonais has drunk poison-oh! What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Life's early cup with such a draught of woe? The nameless worm would now itself disown; It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, But what was howling in one breast alone, Silent with expectation of the song Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. XXXVII. Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame! Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me, XXXVIII. Nor let us weep that our delight is fled Far from these carrion-kites that scream below. He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead; Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. Dust to the dust: but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal, which must glow Through time and change, unquenchably the same, Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. XXXIX. Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep! With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings. We decay Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. XL. He has outsoared the shadow of our night. A heart grown cold, a head grown grey, in yain— XLI. He lives, he wakes-'tis Death is dead, not he Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan! Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains! and, thou Air, thrown Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair! XLII. He is made one with Nature. There is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird. He is a presence to be felt and known In darkness and in light, from herb and stone; Spreading itself where'er that Power may move Which has withdrawn his being to its own, Which wields the world with never-wearied love, Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. XLIII. He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more lovely. He doth bear His part, while the One Spirit's plastic stress Sweeps through the dull dense world; compelling there All new successions to the forms they wear; Torturing the unwilling dross, that checks its flight, To its own likeness, as each mass may bear; And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the heaven's light. XLIV. The splendours of the firmament of time May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not; And love and life contend in it for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. XLV. The inheritors of unfulfilled renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought Far in the unapparent. Chatterton Rose pale, his solemn agony had not Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought, And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved ;Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. XLVI. And many more, whose names on earth are dark, So long as fire outlives the parent spark, "Thou art become as one of us," they cry; "It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long Swung blind In unascended majesty, Silent alone amid an heaven of song. Assume thy wingèd throne, thou Vesper of our throng!" |