A LAMENT FOR ADONIS. FROM BION. I. I MOURN for Adonis-Adonis is dead Fair Adonis is dead, and the Loves are lamenting. Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed! Arise, wretch stoled in black, -beat thy breast unrelenting, And shriek to the worlds, 'Fair Adonis is dead.' II. I mourn for Adonis-the Loves are lamenting. thigh. Cytherea grows mad at his thin gasping breath, While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory, And his eye-balls lie quenched with the weight of his brows, The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just parted The kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose, Though the kiss of the Dead cannot make her gladhearted. He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews. III. I mourn for Adonis-the Loves are lamenting. The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around, And the nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the hill, And the poor Aphrodité, with tresses unbound, All dishevelled, unsandaled, shrieks mournful and shrill Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet, Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy, Each footstep she takes,—and the valleys repeat The sharp cry she utters, and draw it out slowly. She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian, on him Her own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his body, The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb, And the bosom once ivory, turning to ruddy. IV. Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting. She lost her fair spouse, and so lost her fair smile— When he lived she was fair by the whole world's consenting, Whose fairness is dead with him! woe worth the while! All the mountains above and the oaklands below |