5

Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray
Pilgrim of Heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day

Seekest thou repose now?

I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers,

thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone;
The lightning of the noon-tide ocean 15

Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in

my emotion.

Weary Wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest

On the tree or billow?

10

IO

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,

TIME
Nor peace within nor calm around, 20
Nor that content surpassing wealth

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
The sage in meditation found,
And walked with inward glory

Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep

woe crowned

Are brackish with the salt of human tears! Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor

Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb leisure.

and flow Others I see whom these surround-25

Claspest the limits of mortality, 5 Smiling they live, and call life pleas

And sick of prey, yet howling on for ure;

more, To me that cup has been dealt in another

Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable measure.

shore;

Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Yet now despair itself is mild,

Who shall put forth on thee, Even as the winds and waters are;

Unfathomable Sea?
I could lie down like a tired child, 30

And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must

TO NIGHT
bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me, Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
And I might feel in the warm air

Spirit of Night!
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea Out of the misty eastern cave,
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last | Where all the long and lone daylight
monotony.

36 Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, 5

Which make thee terrible and dear,Some might lament that I were cold,

Swift be thy flight!
As I, when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Insults with this untimely moan; 40

Star in-wrought!
They might lament-for I am one Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day: 10
Whom men love not, -and yet regret, Kiss her until she be wearied out;

Unlike this day, which, when the sun | Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, Shall on its stainless glory set,

Touching all with thine opiate wandWill linger, though enjoyed, like joy in

Come, long sought!
memory yet.

45
When I arose and saw the dawn, 15

I sighed for thee;
THE WORLD'S WANDERERS When light rode high, and the dew was

gone, Tell me, thou Star, whose wings of light | And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

And the weary Day turned to his rest, In what cavern of the night

Lingering like an unloved guest, 20 Will thy pinions close now?

I sighed for thee.

ing

Thy brother Death came, and cried, Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle Wouldst thou me?

We encircle the earth and the moon: 10 Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, We shall rest from long labors at noon: Murmured like a noon-tide bee, 25 Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean. Shall I nestle near thy side?

On the brink of the night and the morning Wouldst thou me?-And I replied,

My coursers are wont to respire;
No, not thee!

But the earth has just whispered a warnDeath will come when thou art dead,

That their flight must be swifter than Soon, too soon - 30 |

fire: Sleep will come when thou art fled;

They shall drink the hot speed of deOf neither would I ask the boon

sire!
I ask of thee, belovèd Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,

From Act II, SCENE V
Come soon, soon! 35

Voice in the Air, singing: Life of Life! thy

lips enkindle

With their love the breath between TO —

them;

And thy smiles before they dwindle One word is too often profaned

Make the cold air fire; then screen them For me to profane it,

In those looks, where whoso gazes 5 One feeling too falsely disdained

Faints, entangled in their mazes.
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair

Child of Light! thy limbs are burning
For prudence to smother,

Through the vest which seems to hide And pity from thee more dear

them; Than that from another.

As the radiant lines of morning

Through the clouds ere they divide I can give not what men call love,

them; But wilt thou accept not 10 And this atmosphere divinest The worship the heart lifts above Shrouds thee whereso'er thou shinest.

And the Heavens reject not, - Fair are others; none beholds thee, The desire of the moth for the star,

But thy voice sounds low and tender
Of the night for the morrow,
Like the fairest, for it folds thee

15 The devotion to something afar 15

From the sight, that liquid splendor, From the sphere of our sorrow? And all feel, yet see thee never,

As I feel now, lost for ever!

Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest PROMETHEUS UNBOUND

Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, From Act II, SCENES IV AND V

And the souls of whom thou lovest 21

Walk upon the winds with lightness, Spirit of the Hour: My coursers are fed Till they fail, as I am failing, with the lightning,

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!
They drink of the whirlwind's stream,
And when the red morning is bright'ning

From Act IV
They bathe in the fresh sunbeam;

SONG
They have strength for their swiftness
I deem,

Here, oh, here
Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean. We bear the bier

Of the Father of many a cancelled year! I desire: and their speed makes night Spectres we kindle;

Of the dead Hours be, I fear: they outstrip the Typhoon; We bear Time to his tomb in eternity.

IO

An from the rest, for its

20

10

free;

Strew, oh, strew

To love, and bear; to hope till Hope Hair, not yew!

creates Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew! From its own wreck the thing it contemBe the faded flowers

plates; Of Death's bare bowers

Neither to change, nor falter, nor Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours! repent;

This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Haste, oh, haste!

Good, great, and joyous, beautiful, and
As shades are chased
Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue | This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Vic-
waste.

15
tory.

25 We melt away

Like dissolving spray
From the children of a diviner day,

ADONAIS
With the lullaby
Of winds that die

20

I weep for Adonais-he is dead! On the bosom of their own harmony! Oh, weep for Adonais! though our tears

Thaw not the frost which binds so dear From Act IV

a head!

And thou, sad Hour, selected from all Demogorgon: This is the day, which

years down the void abysm

To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure At the Earth-born's spell yawns for

compeers, Heaven's despotism,

And teach them thine own sorrow! Say: And Conquest is dragged captive

“With me through the deep:

Died Adonais; till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall power In the wise heart, from the last giddy

An echo and a light unto eternity!" hour Of dead endurance, from the slippery,

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when steep,

he lay,

10 And narrow verge of crag-like agony,

When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft springs

which flies And folds over the world its healing wings. In darknessWhere was lorn Urania

When Adonais died? With veilèd eyes, Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endur 'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise ance,

She sate, while one, with soft enamored These are the seals of that most firm breath,

15 assurance

10 Rekindled all the fading melodies, Which bars the pit over Destruction's With which, like flowers that mock the strength;

corse beneath, And if, with infirm hand, Eternity, He had adorned and hid the coming bulk Mother of many acts and hours, should free of death. The serpent that would clasp her with his length;

Oh, weep for Adonais—he is dead! These are the spells by which to re-assume Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and An empire o’er the disentangled doom. 16 weep!

Yet wherefore? Quench within their To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; burning bed To forgive wrongs darker than death or Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart night;

keep To defy Power, which seems omnipo Like his, a mute and uncomplaining tent;

sleep;

be

20

I21

And one with trembling hands clasps Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmerhis cold head,

ing Incarnations And fans him with her moonlight Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phanwings, and cries:

tasies; “Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, not dead;

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by See, on the silken fringe of his faint the gleam eyes,

- 85

Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there | Came in slow pomp;—the moving lies

pomp might seem

116 A tear some Dream has loosened from Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal his brain.”

stream. Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise! She knew not 'twas her own; as with All he had loved, and moulded into no stain

thought, She faded, like a cloud which had outwept From shape, and hue, and odor, and its rain.

90

sweet sound,

Lamented Adonais. Morning sought One from a lucid urn of starry dew Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair Washed his light limbs as if embalming unbound, them;

Wet with the tears which should adorn Another clipped her profuse locks, and the ground, threw

Dimmed the aërial eyes that kindle day; The wreath upon him, like an anadem, Afar the melancholy thunder moaned; Which frozen tears instead of pearls Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay; 125 begem;

95 And the wild winds few round, sobbing in Another in her wilful grief would break their dismay. Her bow and wingèd reeds, as if to stem

Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless A greater loss with one which was more mountains, weak;

And feeds her grief with his remembered And dull the barbèd fire against his lay, frozen cheek.

And will no more reply to winds or

fountains, Another Splendor on his mouth alit, 100 Or amorous birds perched on the young That mouth, whence it was wont to green spray,

130 draw the breath

Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing Which gave it strength to pierce the

day; guarded wit,

Since she can mimic not bis lips, more And pass into the panting heart beneath dear With lightning and with music: the Than those for whose disdain she damp death

104 pined away Quenched its caress upon his icy lips; Into a shadow of all sounds:-a drear And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath Murmur, between their songs, is all the Of moonlight vapor, which the cold woodmen hear.

night clips, It flushed through his pale limbs, and Grief made the young Spring wild, and passed to its eclipse.

she threw down

Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn And others came . . . Desires and Ad were, orations,

Or they dead leaves; since her delight Winged Persuasions and veiled Desti is flown, nies,

For whom should she have waked the

sullen year?

135

IIO