And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,
And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam
115 Of her own dying smile instead of eyes,
Came in slow pomp;?the moving pomp might seem
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.
14
All he had loved, and moulded into thought,
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,
120 Lamented Adonais. Morning sought
Her eastern watchtower, and her hair unbound,
Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground,
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day;
Afar the melancholy thunder moaned,
125 Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay,
And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.
15
Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains,
And feeds her grief with his remembered lay,? song
And will no more reply to winds or fountains,
130 Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray,
Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day;
Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear
Than those for whose disdain she pined away
Into a shadow of all sounds:4?a drear
135 Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.
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? 140 To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear5 Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both Thou Adonais: wan they stand and sere6 Amid the faint companions of their youth, With dew all turned to tears; odour, to sighing ruth.0 pity
4. Because of her unrequited love for Narcissus, Apollo, who accidentally killed him in a game of who was enamored of his own reflection (line 141), quoits. Apollo made the hyacinth flower spring the nymph Echo pined away until she was only a from his blood. reflected sound. 6. Dried, withered. 5. Young Hyacinthus was loved by Phoebus
.
ADONAIS / 827
145 Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale7
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,8 doth complain,0 lament 150 Soaring and screaming round her empty nest,
As Albion0 wails for thee: the curse of Cain England
Light on his head9 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, 155 But grief returns with the revolving year; 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,0 thicket
160 And build their mossy homes in field and brere;0 briar 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 165 As it has ever done, with change and motion, From the great morning of the world when first God 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; 170 Diffuse themselves; and spend in love's delight,
