Has left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear
So struck, so roused, so rapt, Urania;

So saddened round her like an atmosphere
Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way,
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay.

XXIV.

Out of her secret paradise she sped,

Through camps and cities rough with stone and stcel And human hearts, which to her aery tread

Yielding not, wounded the invisible

Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell.

And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they,

Rent the soft form they never could repel,

Whose sacred blood, like the young flowers of May,
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

XXV.

In the death-chamber for a moment Death,

Shamed by the presence of that living Might,
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath

Revisited those lips, and life's pale light

Flashed through those limbs so late her dear delight.

'Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless,

As silent lightning leaves the starless night!

Leave me not!' cried Urania. Her distress

Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain

caress.

XXVI.

'Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again!

Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live!

And in my heartless breast and burning brain

That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,

With food of saddest memory kept alive,

Now thou art dead, as if it were a part

Of thee, my Adonais! I would give

All that I am, to be as now thou art :

But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart.

XXVII.

'O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,

Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?
Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or Scorn the spear?-

Or, hadst thou waited the full cycle when

Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,

The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer.

XXVIII.

'The herded wolves bold only to pursue;

The obscene ravens clamorous o'er the dead;
The vultures to the conqueror's banner true,
Who feed where Desolation first has fed,

And whose wings rain contagion,-how they fled
When, like Apollo from his golden bow,

The Pythian of the age one arrow sped

And smiled!-The spoilers tempt no second blow,
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.

XXIX.

'The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;

He sets, and each ephemeral insect then

Is gathered into death without a dawn,

And the immortal stars awake again.

So is it in the world of living men :

A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight

Making earth bare and veiling heaven; and when
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night.'

XXX.

Thus ceased she: and the Mountain shepherds1 came,
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent ;

1 The poets referred to in stanzas xxx-xxxiv are Byron, Moore, and Shelley himself.

The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame

Over his living head like heaven is bent,
An early but enduring monument;

Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song
In sorrow. From her wilds Ierne sent

The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,

And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue.

XXXI.

Midst others of less note came one frail form,

A phantom among men, companionless
As the last cloud of an expiring storm,
Whose thunder is its knell. He, as I guess,
Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness
Actæon-like; and now he fled astray

With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness,
And his own thoughts along that rugged. way
Pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey.

XXXII.

A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift

A love in desolation masked-a power

Girt round with weakness; it can scarce uplift

The weight of the superincumbent hour.

It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,

A breaking billow;-even whilst we speak

Is it not broken? On the withering flower

The killing sun shines brightly; on a cheek

The life can burn in blood even while the heart may break.

XXXIII.

His head was bound with pansies overblown,
And faded violets, white and pied and blue;
And a light spear topped with a cypress-cone,
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew
Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew,
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart

Shook the weak hand that grasped it. Of that crew

He came the last, neglected and apart;

A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart.

XXXIV.

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan

Smiled through their tears. Well knew that gentle band Who in another's fate now wept his own ;

As in the accents of an unknown land

He sang new sorrow, sad Urania scanned

The Stranger's mien, and murmured 'Who art thou?'

He answered not, but with a sudden hand

Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow,

Which was like Cain's or Christ's-oh that it should be so!

XXXIX.

Peace, Peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep!

He hath awakened from the dream of life.

'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep

With phantoms an unprofitable strife,

And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings. We decay

Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief

Convulse us and consume us day by day,

And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

XL.

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;
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.

XLI.

He lives, he wakes-'tis Death is dead, not he;
Mourn not for Adonais.-Thou young Dawn,
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone!

Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains! and, thou Air,
Which like a mourning-veil thy scarf hadst thrown
O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair

XLII.

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,-
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.

XLIII.

He is a portion of the loveliness

Which once he made more lovely. He doth bear

His part, while the One Spirit's plastic stress

Sweeps through the dull dense world; compelling there All new successions to the forms they wear;

Torturing the unwilling dross, that checks its flight,

To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ;

And bursting in its beauty and its might

From trees and beasts and men into the heavens light.

XLIV.

The splendours of the firmament of time
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not;
Like stars to their appointed height they climb,
And death is a low mist which cannot blot