Life, like a dome of many-coloured 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.

LIII.

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.

LIV.

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.

LV.

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.

WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON.

WHAT! alive and so bold, oh earth?

Art thou not overbold?

What! leapest thou forth as of old
In the light of thy morning mirth,
The last of the flock of the starry fold?
Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?

Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,
And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?

How! is not thy quick heart cold?

What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How is not his death-knell knolled?
And livest thou still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O'er the embers covered and cold

Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled —
What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?

"Who has known me of old," replied Earth,

"Or who has my story told?
It is thou who art overbold."

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, "to my bosom I fold

All my sons when their knell is knolled,

And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

"Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth,

"I grow bolder and still more bold.

The dead fill me ten thousand fold
Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth,
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,

Till by the spirit of the mighty dead

My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed.

"Aye, alive and still bold," muttered Earth, "Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled,

In terror and blood and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow to mould
The metal before it be cold;

And weave into his shame, which like the dead
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

I.

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

II.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,

So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

III.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year:-be calm and mild,

Trembling hours, she will arise
With new love within her eyes.