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 The priest, the slave, and the liberticide Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified, Into the gulf of death; but his clear sprite Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of

light.

V.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb:
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of
time

In which suns perished; others more sublime,

Struck by the envious wrath of man or god, Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; And some yet live, treading the thorny road, Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

VI.

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished,

The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished
And fed with true-love tears instead of dew;
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last,
The bloom, whose petals nipt before they
blew

Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste; The broken lily lies-the storm is overpast.

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,

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A grave among the eternal.-Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue 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! Within the twilight chamber spreads apace The 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-winged 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 has loosened from his brain."
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!

She knew not 'twas 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 clipt 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 winged reeds, as if to stem A greater loss with one which was more weak; And dull the barbèd fire against his frozen cheek.

XII.

Another Splendour on his mouth alit,

That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath

Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,

And pass into the panting heart beneath
With lightning and with music: the damp death
Quenched its caress upon its icy lips;
And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath

VOL. IV.

Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to

its eclipse.

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XIII.

And others came: Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering In

carnations

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 aërial eyes that kindle day;
After the melancholy thunder moaned,
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,

And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their

dismay.

XV.

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,