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The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose, For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep:

Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows; Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep.

Thou in the grave shalt rest-yet till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile,

Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free

From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.

519

MUSIC, WHEN SOFT VOICES DIE

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heap'd for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

520

THE POET'S DREAM

ON a Poet's lips I slept

Dreaming like a love-adept

In the sound his breathing kept;

Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,

But feeds on the aërial kisses

Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses.
He will watch from dawn to gloom

The lake-reflected sun illume

The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,

521

Nor heed nor see what things they be-
But from these create he can

Forms more real than living Man,

Nurslings of Immortality!

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS

TELL me, thou Star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now?

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

Seekest thou repose now?

Weary Mind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?

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An Elegy on the Death of John Keats

I WEEP for Adonais-he is dead!

O, weep for Adonais! though our tears

Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!

And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years

To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers,
And teach them thine own sorrow! Say: 'With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares

Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be

An echo and a light unto eternity!'

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay,
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness? where was lorn Urania

When Adonais died? With veilèd eyes,

'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise

She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,
Rekindled all the fading melodies

With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

Oh weep for Adonais-he is dead!

Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep,
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend;-oh, dream not that the amorous Deep
Will yet restore him to the vital air;

Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.

Most musical of mourners, weep again!

Lament anew, Urania !-He died,

Who was the Sire of an immortal strain,

Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride,

The priest, the slave, and the liberticide,

Trampled and mocked with many a loathèd rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,

Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite

Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!

Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And some yet live, treading the thorny road,

Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode.

But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished,
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;

Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and last,

The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies-the storm is over-past.

To that high Capital, where kingly Death
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,
A grave among the eternal.-Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.

He will awake no more, oh, never more!—
Within the twilight chamber spreads apace,
The shadow of white Death, and at the door
Invisible Corruption waits to trace
His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place;
The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe
Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface
So fair a prey, till darkness, and the law

Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw.

Oh weep for Adonais !-The quick Dreams,
The passion-wingèd Ministers of thought,
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
The love which was its music, wander not,——
Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn
their lot

Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries; 'Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead; See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, (z) HC XLI

Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies

A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain.'
Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise!

She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain
She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain.

One from a lucid urn of starry dew

Washed his light limbs as if embalming them;
Another clipt her profuse locks, and threw
The wreath upon him, like an anadem,
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem;
Another in her wilful grief would break
Her bow and wingèd reeds, as if to stem

A greater loss with one which was more weak;
And dull the barbèd fire against his frozen cheek.

Another Splendour on his mouth alit,

That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath
Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit,
And pass into the panting heart beneath
With lightning and with music: the damp death
Quenched its caress upon his icy lips;

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath

Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips,

It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse.

And others came . . . Desires and Adorations,
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies,

Splendours and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations
Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies;
And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs,

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam

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.

All he had loved, and moulded into thought,
From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound,
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought

Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound,

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