FROM ADONAIS: AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS. 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! Cease ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou air, Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown O'er the abandon'd earth, now leave it bare Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair! 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felt and known In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, Spreading itself where'er that power may move Which has withdrawn his being to its own; Which wields the world with never-wearied love, Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 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; Torturing the unwilling dross that checks its flight To its own likeness, as each mass may bear; And bursting in its beauty and its might From trees and beasts and men, into the Heaven's light. The splendours of the firmament of time May be eclipsed, but are extinguish'd 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. The inheritors of unfulfill'd renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, Far in the unapparent. Chatterton Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought And many more, whose names on earth are dark, Assume thy winged throne, thou vesper of our throng." THE SERPENT IS SHUT OUT FROM PARADISE. THE serpent is shut out from paradise. The widow'd dove must cease to haunt a bower, I too must seldom seek again Of hatred I am proud,-with scorn content; But, not to speak of love, pity alone Turns the mind's poison into food,- Therefore if now I see you seldomer, The very comfort that they minister So deeply is the arrow gone, Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn. When I return to my cold home, you ask You spoil me for the task Of acting a forced part on life's dull scene,— In the world's carnival I sought Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot To speak what you may know too well: The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home; Whence it no more would roam; I ask'd her, yesterday, if she believed Would ne'er have thus relieved His heart with words,-but what his judgment bade To send to you, but that I know, LIBERTY. WHAT art thou, Freedom? Oh! could slaves Thou art not, as impostors say, Thou art clothes, and fire, and food To dim, but not extinguish thee! Thou art Love: the rich have kist And through the rough world follow'd thee. On wealth and war and fraud; whence they Such, they curse their maker not. All that can adorn and bless, Art thou: let deeds, not words, express Let a great assembly be The green earth, on which ye tread, Where pale as corpses newly risen, Lastly, from the palaces, Where the murmur of distress Those prison-halls of wealth and fashion, Or to feel, or to behold Your lost country bought and sold And with great solemnity Declare with ne'er said words, that ye Be your strong and simple words Gleam with sharp desire to wet With folded arms, and looks which are The old laws of England-they Whose reverend heads with age are gray, And whose solemn voice must be On those who first should violate Let them ride among you there; Every woman in the land A volcano heard afar: And these words shall then become A LAMENT. SWIFTER far than summer's flight, Swifter far than youth's delight, Swifter far than happy night, Art thou come and gone: As the earth when leaves are dead, The swallow summer comes again, To fly with thee, false as thou. Sunny leaves from any bough. Lilies for a bridal bed, Pansies let my flowers be: Waste one hope, one fear for me. THE SUN IS WARM, THE SKY IS CLEAR. THE sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, The purple moon's transparent light: The winds, the birds, the ocean-floods, I see the deep's untrampled floor With green and purple seaweeds strown: I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown: I sit upon the sands alone, The lightning of the noontide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, The sage in meditation found, Smiling they live, and call life pleasure : Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan; They might lament-for I am one Whom men love not-and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoy'd, like joy in memory yet. THE HOURS, FROM PROMETHEUS. CARS drawn by rainbow-winged steeds, Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands A wild-eyed charioteer, urging their flight. Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there, And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars: Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink With eager lips the wind of their own speed, As if the thing they loved fled on before, [locks And now, even now, they clasp'd it. Their bright Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all Sweep onward. TO A SKYLARK. HAIL to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. All the earth and air The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: Like a rose embower'd In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflower'd Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY. THE fountains mingle with the river, See the mountains kiss high heaven, And the moonbeams kiss the sea ;- THE CLOUD. I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shades for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rock'd to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fetter'd the thunder, Over earth and ocean with gentle motion, Lured by the love of the genii that move Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, When the morning-star shines dead. As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. [beneath, And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea 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, That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, I bind the sun's throne with the burning zone, The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march When the powers of the air are chain'd to my chair, The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, THE sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, The purple noon's transparent light, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, I see the deep's untrampled floor With green and purple seaweeds strown: I see the waves upon the shore, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown: I sit upon the sands alone, The lightning of the noontide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walk'd with inward glory crown'dNor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Other I see whom these surround Smiling they live and call life pleasure ;To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, |