Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (218 page)

 
He
will awake no more, oh, never more!
  
190
 
‘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 watched Urania’s eyes,
 
And all the Echoes whom their sister’s song
  
195
 
Had held in holy silence, cried: ‘Arise!’
 
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung,
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.

 
She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs
 
Out of the East, and follows wild and drear
  
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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 roused, so rapt Urania;
 
So saddened round her like an atmosphere
  
205
 
Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay.

 
Out of her secret Paradise she sped,
 
Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel,
 
And human hearts, which to her airy tread
  
210
 
Yielding not, wounded the invisible
 
Palms of her tender feet where’er they fell:
 
And barbèd tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they
 
Rent the soft Form they never could repel,
 
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May,
  
215
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.

 
In the death-chamber for a moment Death,
 
Shamed by the presence of that living Might,
 
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath
 
Revisited those lips, and Life’s pale light
  
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Flashed 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
Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress.
  
225

 
‘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,
  
230
 
Now thou art dead, as 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 chained to Time, and cannot thence depart!

 
‘O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert,
  
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Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men
 
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart
 
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?
 
Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then
 
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear?
  
240
 
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when
 
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere,
The monsters of life’s waste had fled from thee like deer.

 
‘The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;
 
The obscene ravens, clamorous o’er the dead;
  
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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
  
250
 
And smiled! — The spoilers tempt no second blow,
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.

 
‘The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn;
 
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then
 
Is gathered into death without a dawn,
  
255
 
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 dimmed or shared its light
  
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Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit’s awful night.’

 
Thus ceased 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,
  
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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.
  
270

 
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 gazed on Nature’s naked loveliness,
  
275
 
Actæon-like, and now he fled astray
 
With feeble steps o’er the world’s wilderness,
 
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way,
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.

 
A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift —
280
 
Love in desolation masked; — 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
  
285
 
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.

 
His head was bound with pansies overblown,
 
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;
  
290
 
And a light spear topped 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 grasped it; of that crew
  
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He came the last, neglected and apart;
A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter’s dart.

 
All stood aloof, and at his partial moan
 
Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band
 
Who in another’s fate now wept his own;
  
300
 
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,
  
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Which was like Cain’s or Christ’s — oh, that it should be so!

 
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,
  
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The heavy heart heaving without a moan?
 
If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise,
 
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one;
 
Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs
The silence of that heart’s accepted sacrifice.
  
315

 
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
  
320
 
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.

 
Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame!
  
325
 
Live! fear no heavier chastisement from me,
 
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:
  
330
 
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.

 
Nor let us weep that our delight is fled
 
Far from these carrion kites that scream below;
  
335
 
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
  
340
 
Through time and change, unquenchably the same,
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.

 
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
  
345
 
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,
  
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And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

 
He has outsoared 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;
  
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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 ceased to burn,
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.
  
360

 
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!
  
365
 
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou 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 despair!

 
He is made one with Nature: there is heard
  
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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
  
375
 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own;
 
Which wields the world with never wearied love,
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above.