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.

66

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 thou now 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 mirror'd 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 it is 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 shepherds

came,

Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent;
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,
Acteon-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

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 smiles brightly: on a cheek
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart
may break.

XXXIII.

His head was bound with pansies over-blown, 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 noon-day 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!

XXXV.

What softer voice is hushed over the dead?
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown?
What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed,
In mockery of monumental stone,
The heavy heart heaving without a moan
If it be he, who, gentlest of the wise,

?

[one;

Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed

Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs, The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice.

XXXVI.

Our Adonais has drunk poison-oh!

What deaf and viperous murderer could crown
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe?
The nameless worm would now itself disown:
It felt, yet could escape the magic tone
Whose prelude held all envy, hate and wrong,
But what was howling in one breast alone,
Silent with expectation of the song,

Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung.