one

Midst others of less note, came

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, Actæon-like, and now lie fled astray With feeble steps o'er the world's wil

derness, And his own thoughts, along that rugged

way, Pursued, like raging hounds, their father

and their prey. A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swiftA Love in desolation masked ;-a Power Girt round with weakness ;-it can

scarce uplift The weight of the superincumbent hour; It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, A breaking billow ;-even whilst wo

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.

crown

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 ! What softer voice is hushed over the

dead? Athwart what brow is that dark mantle

thrown? What form leans sadly o'er the white

deathbed, In mockery of monumental stone, The heavy heart heaving without a

moan ? If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise, Taught, soothed, loved, honored the

departed one ; Let me

not vex, with inharmonious

sighs The silence of that heart's accepted

sacrifice. Our Adonais has drunk poison-oh! What deaf and viperous murderer could 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 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. Live thou, whose infamy is not thy

fame! Live! fear no heavier chastisement irom

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'er.

flow : Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling

to thee; Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret

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. 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 wingéd throne, thou Vesper

of our throng!”

Who mourns for Adonais ? Oli 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.

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. And gray walls moulder round, on which

dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; And one keen pyramid with wedge sub

lime, 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 scarce ex

tinguished breath. 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

(home, Tuine own well full, if thou returnest Of tears and gall. From the world's

bitter wind Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb, What Adonais is, wly fear we to be.

come? The One remains, the many change and

pass ; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's

shadows fly; Life, like a done 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,

[are weak Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, The glory they transfuse with fitting

truth to speak.

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre Ohi 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

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, basten 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 sustain

ing Love Which through the web of being blindly By man and beast and earth and air and

sea, Burns bright or dim, aseachare 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 Descends on me; my spirit's bark is

driven, Far from the shore, far froin the trem

bling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest

given ; The massy earth and spheréd skies are

riven ! i am borne darkly, fearfully, afar ; Whilst burning through the innost veil

of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

18.21. 1821.

WORLDS on worlds are rolling ever

From creation to decay,
Like the bubbles on a river

Sparkling, bursting, borne away.
But they are still immortal

Who, through birth's orient portal And death's dark chasm hurrying to and

fro,
Clothe their unceasing flight

In the brief dust and light
Gathered around their chariots as they

go;
New shapes they still may weave,

New gods, new laws receive,
Bright or dim are they as the robes they

last
On Death's bare ribs had cast.

Wove

in song

LIFE MAY CHANGE, BUT IT MAY

FLY NOT

Swift as the radiant shapes of_sleep

From one wliose dreams are Paradise Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to

weep,
And day peers forth with her blank

eyes ;
So fleet, so faint, so fair,

The Powers of earth and air
Fled from the folding star of Bethlehem

LIFE may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, -but it returneth !

Through the walls of our prison ; And Greece, which was dead, is arisen!

1821. 1822.

Apollo, Pan, and Love,

And even Olympian Jove
Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared

on them;
Our hills and seas and streams

Dispeopled of their dreams,
Their waters turned to blood, their dew

to tears,
Wailed for the golilen years.

From Hellas. 1821. 1822.

SONGS FROM HELLAS

DARKNESS has dawned in the East

On the noon of time:
The death-birds descend to their feast,

From the liungry clime.
Let Freedom and Peace flee far

To a sunnier strand,
And follow Love's folding star

To the Evening land !
The young moon has fed
Her exhausted horn,

With the sunset's fire :
The weak day is dead,

But the night is not born ; And, like loveliness panting with wild desire

(light, While it trembles with fear and de

Hesperus flies from awakening night, And pants in its beauty and speed with

light Fast flashing, soft, and bright. Thou beacon of love! thou lamp of the

free!

Guide us far, far away, Io climes where now veiled by the

ardor of day Thou art hidden From waves on which weary noon Faints in her summer swoon, Between Kingless continents sinless as Eden,

[lably Around mountains and islands invio. Prankt on the sapphire sea.

THE WORLD'S GREAT AGE BEGINS

ANEW
The world's great age begins anew,

The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn :
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires

gleam,
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains

From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains

Against the morning star.
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main,

Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.
Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,

If earth Death's scroll must be !
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy

Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Through the sunset of hope,
Like the shapes of a dream,
What Paradise islands of glory

gleam !
Beneath Heaven's cope,
Their shadows more clear float by
The sound of their oceans, the light

of their sky, The music and fragrance their soli

tudes breathe Burst, like morning on dream, or like

Heaven on death

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,

The splendor of its prime;
And leave, if nought so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose,

Than many uusubdued : 1 1 Saturn and Love were among the deities of a real or imaginary state of innocence and happi. Dess. All those who fell, or the Gods of Greece, Asia, and Egypt; the One wcho rose, or Jesus Christ, at whose appearance the idols of the Pagan World were amereed of their worship: an I the many unsubdued, or the monstrous ob. jects of the idolatry of China, India, the Antarctic islands, and the native tribes of America. certainly have reigne l over the understandings of men in conjunction or in succession, during periods in which all we know of evil has been in a state of portentous, and, until the revival of learning and the arts, perpetually increasing activity. (From Shelley's Note.)