Adonais Can touch him not and torture not again; A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain; 3387 He lives, he wakes-'tis Death is dead, not he; He is made one with Nature: there is heard In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there, Torturing the unwilling dross that checks its flight And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light. The splendors of the firmament of time May be eclipsed, but are extinguished 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. The inheritors of unfulfilled renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved; And many more, whose names on Earth are dark, "It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long Silent alone amid an Heaven of song. Assume thy wingèd throne, thou Vesper of our throng!" Who mourns for Adonais? oh, come forth, Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright. And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre Oh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis naught Adonais Glory from those who made the world their prey; Go thou to Rome,-at once the Paradise, 3389 And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. And gray walls molder round, on which dull Time And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 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. Here pause: these graves are all too young as yet What Adonais is, why fear we to become? The One remains, the many change and pass; Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart? 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. That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, The breath whose might I have invoked in song 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. Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822] TO THE SISTER OF ELIA [CHARLES LAMB, 1775-1834] COMFORT thee, O thou mourner, yet awhile! Again shall Elia's smile Refresh thy heart, where heart can ache no more. In Memory of Walter Savage Landor 3391 He leaves behind him, freed from griefs and years, The love of friends without a single foe: His gentle soul, his genius, these are thine; He may have left the lowly walks of men; Are not his footsteps followed by the eyes Though the warm day is over, yet they seek Of his pure mind the roseate light that glows Behold him! from the region of the blest He speaks: he bids thee rest. Walter Savage Landor [1775-1864] IN MEMORY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR [1775-1864] BACK to the flower-town, side by side, The bright months bring, New-born, the bridegroom and the bride, The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, All things come back to her, being free; In many a tender wheaten plot Live, and old suns revive; but not |