Percy Bysshe Shelley

Heigho! the lark and the owl! One flies the morning, and one lulls the night: Only the nightingale, poor fond soul, Sings like the fool through darkness and light. "A widow bird sate mourning for her love Upon a wintry bough; The frozen wind crept on above, The freezing stream below. "There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground, And little motion in the air Except the mill-wheel's sound."

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare.— Confess. St. August. Earth, ocean, air, belovèd brotherhood! If our great Mother has imbued my soul With aught of natural piety to feel Your love, and recompense the boon with mine; If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, And solemn midnight's tingling silentness; If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, And winter robing with pure snow and crowns Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs; If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me; If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast I consciously have injured, but still loved And cherished these my kindred; then forgive This boast, belovèd brethren, and withdraw No portion of your wonted favour now! Mother of this unfathomable world! Favour my solemn song, for I have loved Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, And my heart ever gazes on the depth Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed In charnels and on coffins, where black death Keeps record of the trophies won from thee, Hoping to still these obstinate questionings Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost Thy messenger, to render up the tale Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, Like an inspired and desperate alchymist Staking his very life on some dark hope, Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks With my most innocent love, until strange tears Uniting with those breathless kisses, made Such magic as compels the charmèd night To render up thy charge:...and, though ne'er yet Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary, Enough from incommunicable dream, And twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thought, Has shone within me, that serenely now And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre Suspended in the solitary dome Of some mysterious and deserted fane, I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain May modulate with murmurs of the air, And motions of the forests and the sea, And voice of living beings, and woven hymns Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. There was a Poet whose untimely tomb No human hands with pious reverence reared, But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:— A lovely youth,—no mourning maiden decked With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath, The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:— Gentle, and brave, and generous,—no lorn bard Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh: He lived, he died, he sung, in solitude. Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes, And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn, And Silence, too enamoured of that voice, Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. By solemn vision, and bright silver dream, His infancy was nurtured. Every sight And sound from the vast earth and ambient air, Sent to his heart its choicest impulses. The fountains of divine philosophy Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great, Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past In truth or fable consecrates, he felt And knew. When early youth had past, he left His cold fireside and alienated home To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands. Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps He like her shadow has pursued, where'er The red volcano overcanopies Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes On black bare pointed islets ever beat With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves Rugged and dark, winding among the springs Of fire and poison, inaccessible To avarice or pride, their starry domes Of diamond and of gold expand above Numberless and immeasurable halls, Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite. Nor had that scene of ampler majesty Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven And the green earth lost in his heart its claims To love and wonder; he would linger long In lonesome vales, making the wild his home, Until the doves and squirrels would partake From his innocuous hand his bloodless food, Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks, And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend Her timid steps to gaze upon a form More graceful than her own. His wandering step Obedient to high thoughts, has visited The awful ruins of the days of old: Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, Stupendous columns, and wild images Of more than man, where marble daemons watch The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, He lingered, poring on memorials Of the world's youth, through the long burning day Gazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moon Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades Suspended he that task, but ever gazed And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw The thrilling secrets of the birth of time. Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food, Her daily portion, from her father's tent, And spread her matting for his couch, and stole From duties and repose to tend his steps:— Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe To speak her love:—and watched his nightly sleep, Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath Of innocent dreams arose: then, when red morn Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned. The Poet wandering on, through Arabie And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, And o'er the aërial mountains which pour down Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, In joy and exultation held his way; Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep There came, a dream of hopes that never yet Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veilèd maid Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. Her voice was like the voice of his own soul Heard in the calm of thought; its music long, Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held His inmost sense suspended in its web Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme, And lofty hopes of divine liberty, Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame A permeating fire: wild numbers then She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs Subdued by its own pathos: her fair hands Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp Strange symphony, and in their branching veins The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. The beating of her heart was heard to fill The pauses of her music, and her breath Tumultuously accorded with those fits Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose, As if her heart impatiently endured Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned, And saw by the warm light of their own life Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare, Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet Her panting bosom:...she drew back a while, Then, yielding to the irresistible joy, With frantic gesture and short breathless cry Folded his frame in her dissolving arms. Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep, Like a dark flood suspended in its course Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain. Roused by the shock he started from his trance— The cold white light of morning, the blue moon Low in the west, the clear and garish hills, The distinct valley and the vacant woods, Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled The hues of heaven that canopied his bower Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep, The mystery and the majesty of Earth, The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. The spirit of sweet human love has sent A vision to the sleep of him who spurned Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade; He overleaps the bounds. Alas! Alas! Were limbs and breath and being intertwined Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost, In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep, That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death Conduct to thy mysterious paradise, O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds, And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake, Lead only to a black and watery depth, While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung, Where every shade which the foul grave exhales Hides its dead eye from the detested day, Conduct, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms? This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart, The insatiate hope which it awakened stung His brain even like despair. While daylight held The sky, the Poet kept mute conference With his still soul. At night the passion came, Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, And shook him from his rest, and led him forth Into the darkness.—As an eagle grasped In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast Burn with the poison, and precipitates Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud, Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight O'er the wide aëry wilderness: thus driven By the bright shadow of that lovely dream, Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night, Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, Startling with careless step the moonlight snake, He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, Shedding the mockery of its vital hues Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on Till vast Aornos, seen from Petra's steep, Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud; Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, Day after day a weary waste of hours, Bearing within his life the brooding care That ever fed on its decaying flame. And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair Sered by the autumn of strange suffering Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand Hung like dead bone within its withered skin; Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone As in a furnace burning secretly From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers, Who ministered with human charity His human wants, beheld with wondering awe Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer, Encountering on some dizzy precipice That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused In its career: the infant would conceal His troubled visage in his mother's robe In terror at the glare of those wild eyes, To remember their strange light in many a dream Of after-times; but youthful maidens, taught By nature, would interpret half the woe That wasted him, would call him with false names Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path Of his departure from their father's door. At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore He paused, a wide and melancholy waste Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. It rose as he approached, and with strong wings Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course High over the immeasurable main. His eyes pursued its flight.—"Thou hast a home, Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home, Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. And what am I that I should linger here, With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven That echoes not my thoughts?" A gloomy smile Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly Its precious charge, and silent death exposed, Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure, With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. Startled by his own thoughts he looked around. There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. A little shallop floating near the shore Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. It had been long abandoned, for its sides Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints Swayed with the undulations of the tide. A restless impulse urged him to embark And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste; For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves The slimy caverns of the populous deep. The day was fair and sunny: sea and sky Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. Following his eager soul, the wanderer Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea Like a torn cloud before the hurricane. As one that in a silver vision floats Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly Along the dark and ruffled waters fled The straining boat.—A whirlwind swept it on, With fierce gusts and precipitating force, Through the white ridges of the chafèd sea. The waves arose. Higher and higher still Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp. Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven With dark obliterating course, he sate: As if their genii were the ministers Appointed to conduct him to the light Of those belovèd eyes, the Poet sate Holding the steady helm. Evening came on, The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray That canopied his path o'er the waste deep; Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day; Night followed, clad with stars. On every side More horribly the multitudinous streams Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock The calm and spangled sky. The little boat Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam Down the steep cataract of a wintry river; Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave; Now leaving far behind the bursting mass That fell, convulsing ocean. Safely fled— As if that frail and wasted human form, Had been an elemental god. At midnight The moon arose: and lo! the ethereal cliffs Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone Among the stars like sunlight, and around Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves Bursting and eddying irresistibly Rage and resound for ever.—Who shall save?— The boat fled on,—the boiling torrent drove,— The crags closed round with black and jaggèd arms, The shattered mountain overhung the sea, And faster still, beyond all human speed, Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave, The little boat was driven. A cavern there Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on With unrelaxing speed.—"Vision and Love!" The Poet cried aloud, "I have beheld The path of thy departure. Sleep and death Shall not divide us long!" The boat pursued The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone At length upon that gloomy river's flow; Now, where the fiercest war among the waves Is calm, on the unfathomable stream The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven, Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm; Stair above stair the eddying waters rose, Circling immeasurably fast, and laved With alternating dash the gnarlèd roots Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms In darkness over it. I' the midst was left, Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud, A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm. Seized by the sway of the ascending stream, With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round, Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose, Till on the verge of the extremest curve, Where, through an opening of the rocky bank, The waters overflow, and a smooth spot Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides Is left, the boat paused shuddering.—Shall it sink Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress Of that resistless gulf embosom it? Now shall it fall?—A wandering stream of wind, Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail, And, lo! with gentle motion, between banks Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark! The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar, With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods. Where the embowering trees recede, and leave A little space of green expanse, the cove Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes, Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task, Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed To deck with their bright hues his withered hair, But on his heart its solitude returned, And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame Had yet performed its ministry: it hung Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods Of night close over it. The noonday sun Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves Scooped in the dark base of their aëry rocks Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever. The meeting boughs and implicated leaves Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death, He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark And dark the shades accumulate. The oak, Expanding its immense and knotty arms, Embraces the light beech. The pyramids Of the tall cedar overarching, frame Most solemn domes within, and far below, Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, The ash and the acacia floating hang Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed In rainbow and in fire, the parasites, Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around The grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes, With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles, Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs Uniting their close union; the woven leaves Make net-work of the dark blue light of day, And the night's noontide clearness, mutable As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns Beneath these canopies extend their swells, Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine, A soul-dissolving odour, to invite To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell, Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades, Like vaporous shapes half seen; beyond, a well, Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave, Images all the woven boughs above, And each depending leaf, and every speck Of azure sky, darting between their chasms; Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves Its portraiture, but some inconstant star Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon, Or gorgeous insect floating motionless, Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon. Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld Their own wan light through the reflected lines Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth Of that still fountain; as the human heart, Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel An unaccustomed presence, and the sound Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed To stand beside him—clothed in no bright robes Of shadowy silver or enshrining light, Borrowed from aught the visible world affords Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;— But, undulating woods, and silent well, And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming, Held commune with him, as if he and it Were all that was,—only... when his regard Was raised by intense pensiveness,... two eyes, Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, And seemed with their serene and azure smiles To beckon him. Obedient to the light That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing The windings of the dell.—The rivulet Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell Among the moss, with hollow harmony Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones It danced; like childhood laughing as it went: Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, Reflecting every herb and drooping bud That overhung its quietness.—"O stream! Whose source is inaccessibly profound, Whither do thy mysterious waters tend? Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs, Thy searchless fountain, and invisible course Have each their type in me: and the wide sky, And measureless ocean may declare as soon What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud Contains thy waters, as the universe Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste I' the passing wind!" Beside the grassy shore Of the small stream he went; he did impress On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one Roused by some joyous madness from the couch Of fever, he did move; yet, not like him, Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame Of his frail exultation shall be spent, He must descend. With rapid steps he went Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now The forest's solemn canopies were changed For the uniform and lightsome evening sky. Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed The struggling brook: tall spires of windlestrae Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope, And nought but gnarlèd roots of ancient pines Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here, Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away, The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes Had shone, gleam stony orbs:—so from his steps Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued The stream, that with a larger volume now Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there Fretted a path through its descending curves With its wintry speed. On every side now rose Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms, Lifted their black and barren pinnacles In the light of evening, and its precipice Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above, Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves, Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks, And seems, with its accumulated crags, To overhang the world: for wide expand Beneath the wan stars and descending moon Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge Of the remote horizon. The near scene, In naked and severe simplicity, Made contrast with the universe. A pine, Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast Yielding one only response, at each pause, In most familiar cadence, with the howl The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river, Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path, Fell into that immeasurable void, Scattering its waters to the passing winds. Yet the grey precipice and solemn pine And torrent, were not all;—one silent nook Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain, Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks, It overlooked in its serenity The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars. It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped The fissured stones with its entwining arms, And did embower with leaves for ever green, And berries dark, the smooth and even space Of its inviolated floor, and here The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore, In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay, Red, yellow, or ethereally pale, Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach The wilds to love tranquillity. One step, One human step alone, has ever broken The stillness of its solitude:—one voice Alone inspired its echoes;—even that voice Which hither came, floating among the winds, And led the loveliest among human forms To make their wild haunts the depository Of all the grace and beauty that endued Its motions, render up its majesty, Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm, And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould, Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss, Commit the colours of that varying cheek, That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes. The dim and hornèd moon hung low, and poured A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank Wan moonlight even to fulness: not a star Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds, Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice Slept, clasped in his embrace.—O, storm of death! Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night: And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still Guiding its irresistible career In thy devastating omnipotence, Art king of this frail world, from the red field Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital, The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne, A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls His brother Death. A rare and regal prey He hath prepared, prowling around the world; Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms, Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine The unheeded tribute of a broken heart. When on the threshold of the green recess The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled, Did he resign his high and holy soul To images of the majestic past, That paused within his passive being now, Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest, Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink Of that obscurest chasm;—and thus he lay, Surrendering to their final impulses The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair, The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear Marred his repose, the influxes of sense, And his own being unalloyed by pain, Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there At peace, and faintly smiling:—his last sight Was the great moon, which o'er the western line Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed To mingle. Now upon the jaggèd hills It rests, and still as the divided frame Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, That ever beat in mystic sympathy With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still: And when two lessening points of light alone Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp Of his faint respiration scarce did stir The stagnate night:—till the minutest ray Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart. It paused—it fluttered. But when heaven remained Utterly black, the murky shades involved An image, silent, cold, and motionless, As their own voiceless earth and vacant air. Even as a vapour fed with golden beams That ministered on sunlight, ere the west Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame— No sense, no motion, no divinity— A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings The breath of heaven did wander—a bright stream Once fed with many-voicèd waves—a dream Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever, Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now. O, for Medea's wondrous alchemy, Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God, Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice Which but one living man has drained, who now, Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels No proud exemption in the blighting curse He bears, over the world wanders for ever, Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream Of dark magician in his visioned cave, Raking the cinders of a crucible For life and power, even when his feeble hand Shakes in its last decay, were the true law Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled Like some frail exhalation; which the dawn Robes in its golden beams,—ah! thou hast fled! The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful, The child of grace and genius. Heartless things Are done and said i' the world, and many worms And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth From sea and mountain, city and wilderness, In vesper low or joyous orison, Lifts still its solemn voice:—but thou art fled— Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee Been purest ministers, who are, alas! Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes That image sleep in death, upon that form Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear Be shed—not even in thought. Nor, when those hues Are gone, and those divinest lineaments, Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone In the frail pauses of this simple strain, Let not high verse, mourning the memory Of that which is no more, or painting's woe Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, And all the shows o' the world are frail and vain To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade. It is a woe too "deep for tears," when all Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans, The passionate tumult of a clinging hope; But pale despair and cold tranquillity, Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.

I I weep for Adonais—he is dead! Oh, 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!" II Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, When thy Son lay, pierc'd 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 enamour'd breath, Rekindled all the fading melodies, With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, He had adorn'd and hid the coming bulk of Death. III Oh, 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. IV 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 mock'd 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. V Most musical of mourners, weep anew! Not all to that bright station dar'd to climb; And happier they their happiness who knew, Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time In which suns perish'd; 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. VI But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perish'd, The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherish'd, 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 nipp'd before they blew Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste; The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast. VII 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. VIII 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. IX Oh, 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. X And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries, "Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead; See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies A tear some Dream has loosen'd from his brain." Lost Angel of a ruin'd Paradise! She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. XI One from a lucid urn of starry dew Wash'd his light limbs as if embalming them; Another clipp'd her profuse locks, and threw The wreath upon him, like an anadem, Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem; Another in her wilful grief would break Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem A greater loss with one which was more weak; And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. XII Another Splendour on his mouth alit, That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, And pass into the panting heart beneath With lightning and with music: the damp death Quench'd its caress upon his icy lips; And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, It flush'd through his pale limbs, and pass'd to its eclipse. XIII And others came . . . Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions and veil'd Destinies, Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies; And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, Came in slow pomp; the moving pomp might seem Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. XIV All he had lov'd, and moulded into thought, From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, Lamented Adonais. Morning sought Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, Dimm'd the aëreal eyes that kindle day; Afar the melancholy thunder moan'd, Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. XV Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief with his remember'd lay, And will no more reply to winds or fountains, Or amorous birds perch'd on the young green spray, Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day; Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear Than those for whose disdain she pin'd away Into a shadow of all sounds: a drear Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. XVI Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown, For whom should she have wak'd the sullen year? To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere Amid the faint companions of their youth, With dew all turn'd to tears; odour, to sighing ruth. XVII Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain; Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain Light on his head who pierc'd thy innocent breast, And scar'd the angel soul that was its earthly guest! XVIII Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year; The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear; Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier; The amorous birds now pair in every brake, And build their mossy homes in field and brere; And the green lizard, and the golden snake, Like unimprison'd flames, out of their trance awake. XIX Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst As it has ever done, with change and motion, From the great morning of the world when first God dawn'd on Chaos; in its stream immers'd, The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light; All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst; Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight, The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. XX The leprous corpse, touch'd by this spirit tender, Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath; Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour Is chang'd to fragrance, they illumine death And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath; Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows Be as a sword consum'd before the sheath By sightless lightning?—the intense atom glows A moment, then is quench'd in a most cold repose. XXI Alas! that all we lov'd of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene The actors or spectators? Great and mean Meet mass'd in death, who lends what life must borrow. As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. XXII He will awake no more, oh, never more! "Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, rise Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, A wound more fierce than his, with tears and sighs." And all the Dreams that watch'd Urania's eyes, And all the Echoes whom their sister's song Had held in holy silence, cried: "Arise!" Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung, From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. XXIII She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs Out of the East, and follows wild and drear The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear So struck, so rous'd, so rapt Urania; So sadden'd 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 steel, 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 tears of May, Pav'd with eternal flowers that undeserving way. XXV In the death-chamber for a moment Death, Sham'd by the presence of that living Might, Blush'd to annihilation, and the breath Revisited those lips, and Life's pale light Flash'd 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 Rous'd Death: Death rose and smil'd, 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 thou now art! But I am chain'd 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 unpastur'd 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 fill'd 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 smil'd! 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 gather'd 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 dimm'd or shar'd its light Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." XXX Thus ceas'd 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 gaz'd on Nature's naked loveliness, Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, Pursu'd, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. XXXII A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift— A Love in desolation mask'd—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 overblown, And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue; And a light spear topp'd 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 grasp'd it; of that crew He came the last, neglected and apart; A herd-abandon'd deer struck by the hunter's dart. XXXIV All stood aloof, and at his partial moan Smil'd 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 sung new sorrow; sad Urania scann'd The Stranger's mien, and murmur'd: "Who art thou?" He answer'd not, but with a sudden hand Made bare his branded and ensanguin'd brow, Which was like Cain's or Christ's—oh! that it should be so! XXXV What softer voice is hush'd 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, Taught, sooth'd, lov'd, honour'd the departed one, 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. XXXVII Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame! Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me, Thou noteless blot on a remember'd name! But be thyself, and know thyself to be! And ever at thy season be thou free To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow; Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee; Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt—as now. XXXVIII Nor let us weep that our delight is fled Far from these carrion kites that scream below; He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead; Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal, which must glow Through time and change, unquenchably the same, Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. XXXIX Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep, He hath awaken'd 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 outsoar'd 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 gray in vain; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceas'd 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 abandon'd 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 th' 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 Heaven's light. XLIV The splendours of the firmament of time May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not; Like stars to their appointed height they climb, And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. XLV The inheritors of unfulfill'd renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton Rose pale, his solemn agony had not Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought And as he fell and as he liv'd and lov'd Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, Arose; and Lucan, by his death approv'd: Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reprov'd. XLVI And many more, whose names on Earth are dark, But whose transmitted effluence cannot die So long as fire outlives the parent spark, Rose, rob'd in dazzling immortality. "Thou art become as one of us," they cry, "It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long Swung blind in unascended majesty, Silent alone amid a Heaven of Song. Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!" XLVII Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth, Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright. Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth; As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might Satiate the void circumference: then shrink Even to a point within our day and night; And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink When hope has kindled hope, and lur'd thee to the brink. XLVIII Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, Oh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis nought That ages, empires and religions there Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought; For such as he can lend—they borrow not Glory from those who made the world their prey; And he is gather'd to the kings of thought Who wag'd contention with their time's decay, And of the past are all that cannot pass away. XLIX Go thou to Rome—at once the Paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness; And where its wrecks like shatter'd mountains rise, And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation's nakedness Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread; L And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who plann'd This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transform'd to marble; and beneath, A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitch'd in Heaven's smile their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguish'd breath. LI Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet To have outgrown the sorrow which consign'd 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? LII The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-colour'd 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. 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 pass'd from the revolving year, 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 invok'd 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, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.