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. 519 520 MUSIC, WHEN SOFT VOICES DIE MUSIC, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heap'd for the beloved's bed; And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone, 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. The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, 521 Nor heed nor see what things they be Nurslings of Immortality! THE WORLD'S WANDERERS TELL me, thou Star, whose wings of light In what cavern of the night Will thy pinions close now? Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray Seekest thou repose now? Weary Mind, who wanderest 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! Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity!' Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 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, 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! 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 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; Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode. But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished, Most musical of mourners, weep anew! The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew To that high Capital, where kingly Death He will awake no more, oh, never more!— Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. Oh weep for Adonais!-The quick Dreams, 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.' She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain One from a lucid urn of starry dew Washed his light limbs as if embalming them; Another Splendour on his mouth alit, That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath 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, Splendours and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam All he had loved, and moulded into thought, Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, |