As in the accents of an unknown land He sung new sorrow; sad Urania scanned The Stranger's mien, and murmured: "Who art thou?" He answered not, but with a sudden hand Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, Which was like Cain's or Christ's-oh! that it should be so ! XXXV What softer voice is hushed 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, soothed, loved, honored 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 Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. XXXVII Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame! Thou noteless blot on a remembered 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 now. XXXVIII Nor let us weep that our delight is fled as Far from these carrion kites that scream below; Back to the burning fountain whence it came, same, Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. XXXIX Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep He hath awakened 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 Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. XL He has outsoared the shadow of our night; A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain ; Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased 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 splendor, for from thee Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! Air, Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare Even to the joyous stars which smile on its de spair! XLII He is made one with Nature: there is heard In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 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 the 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 splendors of the firmament of time 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 unfulfilled 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 lived and loved Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot, Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved ; Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 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, robed 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 an Heaven of song. Assume thy wingèd throne, thou Vesper of our throng!" XLVII Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth, As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. |