Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved; 405 Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing re

proved.

410

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!"

415

420

425

XLVII.

Who mourns for Adonais? oh, come forth,
Fond wretch! and know thyself and him aright.
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous
Earth;

As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might
Satiate the void circumference; then shrink
Even to a point within our day and night;
And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink
When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to
the brink.

XLVIII.

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre
Oh, not of him, but of our joy: 'tis naught
That ages, empires, and religions there
Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought;

430

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.

435

440

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.

445

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,

450 Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished

breath.

LI.

455

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?

460

465

LII.

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

Life, like a dome of many-coloured 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.

470

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 past from the revolving year,

475

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.

480

485

490

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,

495 Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

TIME

(1821)

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow 5 Claspest the limits of mortality,

10

And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore; Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable Sea?

ΤΟ
(1821)

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;

Odours, when sweet violets sicken;
Live within the sense they quicken.

5 Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou are gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

TO NIGHT

(1821)

I.

Swiftly walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where all the long and lone daylight
5 Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear,-
Swift be thy flight!