Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

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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.

      IV

      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 loathed 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.

      V

      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.

      VI

      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 the last,

      The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew

      Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;

      The broken lily lies—the storm is overpast.

      VII

      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.

      VIII

      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.

      IX

      Oh, weep for Adonais!—The quick Dreams,

      The passion-winged 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.

      X

      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,

      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.

      XI

      One from a lucid urn of starry dew

      Washed his light limbs as if embalming them;

      Another clipped 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 winged reeds, as if to stem

      A greater loss with one which was more weak;

      And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek.

      XII

      Another Splendour on his mouth alit,

      That

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