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I WEEP for Adonais—he is dead! | |
| O, 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!’… | |
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| Oh, weep for Adonais—he is dead! | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| 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…. | |
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| He will awake no more, oh, never more!— | |
| Within the twilight chamber spreads apace | 20 |
| 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 | 25 |
| So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law | |
| Of change, shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw…. | |
| |
| Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone, | |
| But grief returns with the revolving year; | |
| The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; | 30 |
| The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear; | |
| Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons’ bier; | |
| The amorous birds now pair in every brake, | |
| And build their mossy homes in field and brere; | |
| And the green lizard, and the golden snake, | 35 |
| Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake…. | |
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| He has outsoared the shadow of our night; | |
| Envy and calumny and hate and pain, | |
| And that unrest which men miscall delight, | |
| Can touch him not and torture not again; | 40 |
| From the contagion of the world’s slow stain | |
| He is secure, and now can never mourn | |
| A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain; | |
| Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn, | |
| With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn…. | 45 |
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| 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, | 50 |
| 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…. | |
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| Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart? | 55 |
| Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here | |
| They have departed; thou shouldst now depart! | |
| A light is passed from the revolving year, | |
| And man, and woman; and what still is dear | |
| Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. | 60 |
| The soft sky smiles,—the low wind whispers near: | |
| ’Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither, | |
| No more let Life divide what Death can join together. | |
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