Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! Follow where all is fled !-Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. LIII. Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart? Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here They have departed; thou shouldst now depart! A light is past from the revolving year, And man, and woman; and what still is dear Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near: 'Tis Adonais calls! O, hasten thither, No more let Life divide what Death can join together. LIV. That light whose smile kindles the Universe, That Beauty in which all things work and move, That Benediction which the eclipsing curse Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst, now beams or me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. LV. The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! I am borne darkly, fearfully afar; Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. TO NIGHT. SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Where all the long and lone daylight Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, Blind with thine hair the eyes of day, Kiss her until she be wearied out, When I arose and saw the dawn, I sighed for thee; When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turned to his rest, Thy brother Death came, and cried, Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Shall I nestle near thy side? Death will come when thou art dead, Sleep will come when thou art fled; FROM THE ARABIC. AN IMITATION. My faint spirit was sitting in the light It panted for thee like the hind at noon Thy barb, whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight, My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed, The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove In the battle, in the darkness, in the need, Shall mine cling to thee, Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love, TO E*** V***. MADONNA, wherefore hast thou sent to me Embleming love and health, which never yet Alas, and they are wet! Is it with thy kisses or thy tears? Such fragrance drew From plant or flower-the very doubt er dears My sadness ever new, The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed for thee. TIME. UNFATHOMABLE Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow Claspest the limits of mortality, |