LI.

455

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?

460

465

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,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,

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.

470

LIII.

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my
Heart?

Thy hopes are gone before; from all things here
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!
A light is past from the revolving year,

475

480

485

490

And man, and woman; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
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,
That Beauty in which all things work and
move,

That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

LV.

The breath whose might I have invoked in
song

Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling
throng

Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;

Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of
Heaven,

The soul of Adonais, like a star,

495 Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

TIME

(1821)

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow 5 Claspest the limits of mortality,

10

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea?

ΤΟ

(1821)

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;

Odours, when sweet violets sicken;
Live within the sense they quicken.

5 Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou are gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

TO NIGHT

(1821)

I.

Swiftly walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where all the long and lone daylight
5 Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear,-
Swift be thy flight!

II.

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!

10 Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out;

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, Touching all with thine opiate wandCome, long-sought!

III.

15 When I arose and saw the dawn, I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone, And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turned to his rest, 20 Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee.

IV.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
25 Murmured like a noontide bee,
Shall I nestle at thy side?

30

335

Would'st thou me?-and I replied,
No, not thee!

V.

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon;

Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon

I ask of thee, beloved Night,-
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

A LAMENT

(1821)

I.

10

O world! O life! O time!

On whose last steps I climb,

Trembling at that where I had stood before; When will return the glory of your prime? 5 No more-oh, never more!

II.

Out of the day and night

A joy has taken flight;

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more-oh, never more!

ΤΟ

(1821)

I.

One word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;

5 One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

10

II.

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above

And the Heavens reject not,