Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

100 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,

105 The world should listen then-as I am listening

now.

THE CLOUD
(1820)

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

5 From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

10

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,

And their great pines groan aghast; 15 And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

20

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls by fits;

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

25 Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

30

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead;

35 As on the jag of a mountain crag,

40

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardours of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

45 That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the Moon,

50

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

55 When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

60

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanos are dim, and the stars reel and
swim,

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

65 Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,-
The mountains its columns be.

70

The triumphal arch, through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my
chair,

Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;

75 I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.

80

For after the rain, when with never a stain

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,

Build up the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

5

10

ADONAIS

(1821)

I.

I weep for Adonais-he is dead!

Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow; Say: "With

me

Died Adonais; till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!"

II.

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies

In darkness? where was lorn Urania

When Adonais died? With veilèd eyes,

'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise

15 She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,

Rekindled all the fading melodies,

With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,

He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

III.

20

Oh, weep for Adonais-he is dead!

Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning

bed

Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep

25

30

35

40

Like his a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone where all things wise and fair
Descend. Oh, dream not that the amorous
Deep

Will yet restore him to the vital air;

Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

IV.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania!-He died,

Who was the sire of an immortal strain,
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide

Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,

Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite Yet reigns o'er earth, the third among the sons of light.

V.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!

Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of
time

In which suns perished; others more sublime, Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime; And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 45 Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

VI.

But now, thy youngest,

perished,

dearest one has

The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished
And fed with true-love tears instead of dew;