And last, Man's Life on earth, Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.
Thou hast my better years,
Thou hast my earlier friends-the good—the kind, Yielded to thee with tears
The venerable form-the exalted mind.
My spirit yearns to bring
The lost ones back-yearns with desire intense, And struggles hard to wring
Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.
In vain-thy gates deny
All passage save to those who hence depart; Nor to the streaming eye
Thou givest them back-nor to the broken heart.
They have not perished-no!
Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet,
Smiles, radiant long ago,
And features, the great soul's apparent seat.
All shall come back, each tie
Of pure affection shall be knit again; Alone shall Evil die,
And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.
And then shall I behold
Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, And her, who still and cold,
Fills the next grave-the beautiful and young.
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?
The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-colored 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.
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
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.
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.
From Dian's circle light and near, Onward to vaster and wider rings, Where, chanting through his beard of snows, Majestic, mournful, Saturn goes,
And down the sunless realms of space Reverberates the thunder of his bass.
Beneath the sky's triumphal arch This music sounded like a march, And with its chorus seemed to be Preluding some great tragedy. Sirius was rising in the east; And, slow ascending one by one, The kindling constellations shone. Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant Algebar, Orion, hunter of the beast! His sword hung gleaming by his side. And, on his arm, the lion's hide Scattered across the midnight air The golden radiance of its hair.
The moon was pallid, but not faint; And beautiful as some fair saint, Serenely moving on her way In hours of trial and dismay. As if she heard the voice of God, Unharmed with naked feet she trod Upon the hot and burning stars, As on the glowing coals and bars That were to prove her strength, and try Her holiness and her purity.
Thus moving on, with silent pace, And triumph in her sweet pale face, She reached the station of Orion, Aghast he stood in strange alarm! And suddenly from his outstretched arm Down fell the red skin of the lion Into the river at his feet.
His mighty club no longer beat The forehead of the bull; but he Reeled as of yore beside the sea, When, blinded by Enopion,
He sought the blacksmith at his forgo,
And, climbing up the mountain gorge, Fixed his blank eyes upon the sun.
Then, through the silence overhead, An angel with a trumpet said, "For evermore, for evermore, The reign of violence is o'er !" And, like an instrument that flings Its music on another's strings, The trumpet of the angel cast Upon the heavenly lyre its blast, And on from sphere to sphere the words Re-echoed down the burning chords,- "For evermore, for evermore,
The reign of violence is o'er!
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