The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 80

16.

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown, For whom should she have waked the sullen year?

To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear _140 Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both Thou, Adonais: wan they stand and sere Amid the faint companions of their youth, With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.

17.

Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale _145 Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain; Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, _150 As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!

18.

Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year; _155 The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; The ants, the bees, the swallows reappear; Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier; The amorous birds now pair in every brake, And build their mossy homes in field and brere; _160 And the green lizard, and the golden snake, Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.

19.

Through wood and stream and field and hill and Ocean A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst As it has ever done, with change and motion, _165 From the great morning of the world when first G.o.d dawned on Chaos; in its stream immersed, The lamps of Heaven flash with a softer light; All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst; Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight, _170 The beauty and the joy of their renewed might.

20.

The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender, Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath; Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death _175 And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath; Nought we know, dies. Shall that alone which knows Be as a sword consumed before the sheath By sightless lightning?--the intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. _180

21.

Alas! that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!

Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene The actors or spectators? Great and mean _185 Meet ma.s.sed in death, who lends what life must borrow.

As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

22.

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.

23.

She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs Out of the East, and follows wild and drear _200 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 rapped 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.

24.

Out of her secret Paradise she sped, Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel, And human hearts, which to her aery tread _210 Yielding not, wounded the invisible Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell: And barbed 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.

25.

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 _220 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

26.

'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 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!

27.

'O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, _235 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 s.h.i.+eld, 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.

28.

'The herded wolves, bold only to pursue; The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead; _245 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.

29.

'The sun comes forth, and many reptiles sp.a.w.n; 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 G.o.dlike mind soars forth, in its delight Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light _260 Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night.'

30.

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, _265 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

31.

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 Actaeon-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.

32.

A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift-- _280 A Love in desolation masked;--a Power Girt round with weakness;--it can scarce uplift The weight of the superinc.u.mbent 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.

33.

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 _295 He came the last, neglected and apart; A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart.

34.

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, _305 Which was like Cain's or Christ's--oh! that it should be so!

35.

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, _310 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

36.

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.

37.

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame! _325 Live! fear no heavier chastis.e.m.e.nt 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.

38.

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.

39.

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, _350 And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

40.

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; _355 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

41.

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!

42.

He is made one with Nature: there is heard _370 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.

43.

He is a portion of the loveliness Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear _380 His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there All new successions to the forms they wear; Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight To its own likeness, as each ma.s.s may bear; _385 And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light.