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 hand 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 loosened from his brain."
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!

She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

viii. 9 Galignani, 1829 || Of mortal change shall fill the grave which is her maw, Shelley, 1821.

XI

One from a lucid urn of starry dew

Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them; Another clipped 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 wingèd reeds, as if to stem. A greater loss with one which was more weak; And dull the barbèd fire against his frozen cheek.

XII

Another Splendor 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
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips;

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath

Of moonlight vapor, which the cold night clips, It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

XIII

And others came - Desires and Adorations, Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, Splendors, and Glooms, and glimmering Incar

nations

Of hopes and fears, and twilight Fantasies s;
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam

xii. 6 his, Shelley, 1821 || its, Mrs. Shelley, 18391.

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 loved, and moulded into thought From shape, and hue, and odor, and sweet sound, Lamented Adonais. Morning sought

Her eastern watch tower, and her hair unbound, Wet with the tears which should adorn the

ground,

Dimmed the aërial eyes that kindle day;

After the melancholy thunder moaned,

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 remembered lay, And will no more reply to winds or fountains, Or amorous birds perched 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 pined 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 waked 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 turned to tears; odor, 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 pierced thy innocent
breast,

And scared 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 ;

xvi. 3 Or, And, James Thomson conj.

8 faint companions, Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || drooping comrades, Shelley, 1821.

And the green lizard and the golden snake, Like unimprisoned 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 dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed, 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, touched by this spirit tender,
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath;
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendor
Is changed 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 consumed before the sheath

By sightless lightning? the intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.

XXI

Alas! that all we loved of him should be,
But for our grief, as if it had not been,
And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!

xx. 3 when, where or whose, Rossetti conj.