Adonais Part 7

28.

'The herded wolves bold only to pursue, The obscene ravens clamorous o'er the dead, The vultures to the conqueror's banner true, Who feed where desolation first has fed, And whose wings rain contagion,--how they fled, 5 When like Apollo, from his golden bow, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped, 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, And the immortal stars awake again.

So is it in the world of living men: 5 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 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, An early but enduring monument, 5 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.

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 5 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 pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift-- 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, 5 A breaking billow;--even whilst we speak 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; 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, 5 Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart Shook the weak hand that grasped it. Of that crew 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; As in the accents of an unknown land He sang new sorrow; sad Urania scanned 5 The Stranger's mien, and murmured 'Who art thou?'

He answered not, but with a sudden hand Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 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, The heavy heart heaving without a moan? 5 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.

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 5 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!

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 5 To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow; 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.

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 5 Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 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 With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife 5 Invulnerable nothings. _We_ decay Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, 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.

From the contagion of the world's slow stain 5 He is secure; and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain-- Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

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! 5 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 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, 5 Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 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 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; 5 Torturing th' unwilling dross, that checks its flight, To its own likeness, as each ma.s.s may bear; And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men into the heaven's light.

44.