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I WEEP for ADONAIS—he is dead! | |
| Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears | |
| Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head! | |
| And thou, sad, hour, selected from all years | |
| To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, | 5 |
| And teach them thine own sorrow; say: with me | |
| Died Adonais; till the Future dares | |
| Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be | |
| An echo and a light unto eternity! * * * * * | |
| He has outsoared the shadow of our night; | 10 |
| Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, | |
| And that unrest which men miscall delight, | |
| Can touch him not and torture not again; | |
| From the contagion of the world’s slow stain | |
| He is secure, and now can never mourn | 15 |
| A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; | |
| Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn, | |
| With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. * * * * * | |
| The breath whose might I have invoked in song | |
| Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| The soul of Adonais, like a star, | |
| Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. | |
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