Adonais Part 8

The splendours of the firmament of time May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not; Like stars to their appointed height they climb, And death is a low mist which cannot blot The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 5 Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, And love and life contend in it for what Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

45.

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, Far in the unapparent. Chatterton Rose pale, his solemn agony had not Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought 5 And as he fell and as he lived and loved Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved;-- Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved.

46.

And many more, whose names on earth are dark But whose transmitted effluence cannot die So long as fire outlives the parent spark, Rose, robed in dazzling immortality.

'Thou art become as one of us,' they cry; 5 'It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long Swung blind in unascended majesty, Silent alone amid an heaven of song.

a.s.sume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!'

47.

Who mourns for Adonais? Oh come forth, Fond wretch, and know thyself and him aright.

Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous earth; As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light Beyond all worlds, until its s.p.a.cious might 5 Satiate the void circ.u.mference: then shrink Even to a point within our day and night; And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink.

48.

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, Oh not of him, but of our joy. 'Tis nought That ages, empires, and religions, there Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought; For such as he can lend--they borrow not 5 Glory from those who made the world their prey: And he is gathered to the kings of thought Who waged contention with their time's decay, And of the past are all that cannot pa.s.s away.

49.

Go thou to Rome,--at once the paradise, The grave, the city, and the wilderness; And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation's nakedness, 5 Pa.s.s, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the gra.s.s is spread.

50.

And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a h.o.a.ry brand; And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand 5 Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitched in heaven's smile their camp of death, Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.

51.

Here pause. These graves are all too young as yet To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned Its charge to each; and, if the seal is set Here on one fountain of a mourning mind, Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find 5 Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.

What Adonais is why fear we to become?

52.

The One remains, the many change and pa.s.s; Heaven's light for ever s.h.i.+nes, earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured gla.s.s, Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.--Die, 5 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.

53.

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 5 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.

54.

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 5 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.

55.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven Far from the sh.o.r.e, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given.

The ma.s.sy earth and sphered skies are riven! 5 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.

CANCELLED Pa.s.sAGES OF ADONAIS,

AND OF ITS PREFACE.

The expression of my indignation and sympathy. I will allow myself a first and last word on the subject of calumny as it relates to me. As an author I have dared and invited censure. If I understand myself, I have written neither for profit nor for fame: I have employed my poetical compositions and publications simply as the instruments of that sympathy between myself and others which the ardent and unbounded love I cherished for my kind incited me to acquire. I expected all sorts of stupidity and insolent contempt from those.... These compositions (excepting the tragedy of _The Cenci_, which was written rather to try my powers than to unburden my full heart) are insufficiently....

Commendation then perhaps they deserve, even from their bitterest enemies; but they have not obtained any corresponding popularity. As a man, I shrink from notice and regard: the ebb and flow of the world vexes me: I desire to be left in peace. Persecution, contumely, and calumny, have been heaped upon me in profuse measure; and domestic conspiracy and legal oppression have violated in my person the most sacred rights of nature and humanity. The bigot will say it was the recompense of my errors--the man of the world will call it the result of my imprudence: but never upon one head....

Reviewers, with some rare exceptions, are a most stupid and malignant race. As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuccessful author turns critic. But a young spirit panting for fame, doubtful of its powers, and certain only of its aspirations, is ill-qualified to a.s.sign its true value to the sneer of this world. He knows not that such stuff as this is of the abortive and monstrous births which time consumes as fast as it produces. He sees the truth and falsehood, the merits and demerits, of his case, inextricably entangled.... No personal offence should have drawn from me this public comment upon such stuff.

The offence of this poor victim seems to have consisted solely in his intimacy with Leigh Hunt, Mr. Hazlitt, and some other enemies of despotism and superst.i.tion. My friend Hunt has a very hard skull to crack, and will take a deal of killing. I do not know much of Mr.

Hazlitt, but....

I knew personally but little of Keats; but, on the news of his situation, I wrote to him, suggesting the propriety of trying the Italian climate, and inviting him to join me. Unfortunately he did not allow me.

1.

And the green paradise which western waves Embosom in their ever-wailing sweep,-- Talking of freedom to their tongueless caves, Or to the spirits which within them keep A record of the wrongs which, though they sleep, 5 Die not, but dream of retribution,--heard His hymns, and echoing them from steep to steep, Kept--