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 gathered to the kings of thought

Who waged 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 shattered 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 planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath,

A field is spread, on which a newer band
Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of

death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished

breath.

LI

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 ?

LII

a

The One remains, the many change and pass ; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows

fly; Life, like a dome of many-colored 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 passed 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 to gether.

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 spherèd 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.

HELLAS

A LYRICAL DRAMA

ΜΑΝΤΙΣ ΕΙΜ' ΕΣΘΛΩΝ ΑΓΩΝΩΝ

EDIP. COLON.