XLIV.

The splendours 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.

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,
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 nought
That ages, empires, and religions, there

Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought;
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.

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.

L.

And grey 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, Welcoming him we lose with scare-extinguished breath.

LI.

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?

LII.

The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light for ever 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.

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,

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.

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,

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

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,

Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear,
Swift be thy flight!

II.

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought;

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out.
Then wander o'er city and sea and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long-sought!

III.

When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,

And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, And the weary Day turned to his rest, Lingering like an unloved guest,

I sighed for thee.

IV.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
'Wouldst thou me?'

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,

'Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?' And I replied,
'No, not thee.'

V.

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon-

Sleep will come when thou art fled.
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night—
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

(1821.)

ΤΟ

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

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

Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

(1821.)