Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. XLVIII. Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre O, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis nought That ages, empires, and religions there Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought; For such as he can lend, — they borrow not Glory from those who made the world their prey; And he is gathered to the kings of thought Who waged contention with their time's decay, And of the past are all that cannot pass away. XLIX. Go thou to Rome, The at once the Paradise, grave, the city, and the wilderness; And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation's nakedness Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. L. And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath. : LI. Here pause these graves are all too young as yet To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned Its charge to each; and if the seal is set, Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind, Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. What Adonais is, why fear we to become? LII. The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 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? And man, and woman; and what still is dear 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. LIV. That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, By man and beast and earth and air and sea, LV. The breath whose might I have invoked in song Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON. WHAT! alive and so bold, oh earth? Art thou not overbold? What! leapest thou forth as of old Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled, How! is not thy quick heart cold? What spark is alive on thy hearth? Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled – What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead? "Who has known me of old," replied Earth, |