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, 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!”
Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies In darkness? where was lorn Urania When Adonais died? With veiled eyes, Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, Rekindled all the fading melodies With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.
O, weep for Adonais—he is dead! 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 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.
Most musical of mourners, weep again! Lament anew, Urania!—He died, Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, Blind, old, and lonely, when his country’s pride, The priest, the slave, and the liberticide Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified, Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite Yet reigns o’er earth; the third among the sons of light.
Most musical of mourners, weep anew! Not all to that bright station dared to climb; And happier they their happiness who knew, Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time In which suns perished; others more sublime, Struck by the envious wrath of man or god, Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; And some yet live, treading the thorny road Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame’s serene abode.
But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished— The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished, And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew; Most musical of mourners, weep anew! Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last, The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste; The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast.
To that high Capital, where kingly Death Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, He came; and bought, with price of purest breath, A grave among the eternal.—Come away! Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay; Awake him not! surely he takes his fill Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.
He will awake no more, oh, never more!— Within the twilight chamber spreads apace 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 So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law Of change, shall o’er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.
O, weep for Adonais!—The quick Dreams, The passion-winged Ministers of thought, Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught The love which was its music, wander not,— Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain, But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, They ne’er will gather strength, or find a home again.