Chapter 6
'The flowers flush red for anguish.... This kiss will I treasure, even as thyself, Adonis, since, ah ill-fated! thou art fleeing me,... while wretched I yet live, being a goddess, and may not follow thee. Persephone, take thou my lover, my lord, for thyself art stronger than I, and all lovely things drift down to thee.... For why ah overbold! didst thou follow the chase, and, being so fair, why wert thou thus over-hardy to fight with beasts?... A tear the Paphian sheds for each blood-drop of Adonis, and tears and blood on the earth are turned to flowers.... Ah even in death he is beautiful, beautiful in death, as one that hath fallen on sleep.... All things have perished in his death, yea all the flowers are faded.... He reclines, the delicate Adonis, in his raiment of purple, and around him the Loves are weeping and groaning aloud, clipping their locks for Adonis. And one upon his shafts, another on his bow, is treading, and one hath loosed the sandal of Adonis, and another hath broken his own feathered quiver, and one in a golden vessel bears water, and another laves the wound, and another, from behind him, with his wings is fanning Adonis.... Thou must again bewail him, again must weep for him another year.... He does not heed them [the Muses]; not that he is doth to hear, but that the Maiden of Hades doth not let him go.'
The next-ensuing passages come from the Elegy of Moschus for Bion:--
'Ye flowers, now in sad clusters breathe yourselves away. Now redden, ye roses, in your sorrow, and now wax red, ye wind-flowers; now, thou hyacinth, whisper the letters on thee graven, and add a deeper ai ai to thy petals: he is dead, the beautiful singer.... Ye nightingales that lament among the thick leaves of the trees, tell ye to the Sicilian waters of Arethusa the tidings that Bion the herdsman is dead.... Thy sudden doom, O Bion, Apollo himself lamented, and the Satyrs mourned thee, and the Priapi in sable raiment, and the Panes sorrow for thy song, and the Fountain-fairies in the wood made moan, and their tears turned to rivers of waters. And Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent, and no more she mimics thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded.... Nor ever sang so sweet the nightingale on the cliffs,... nor so much, by the grey sea-waves, did ever the sea-bird sing, nor so much in the dells of dawn did the bird of Memnon bewail the son of the Morning, fluttering around his tomb, as they lamented for Bion dead.... Echo, among the reeds, doth still feed upon thy songs.... This, O most musical of rivers, is thy second sorrow,--this, Meles, thy new woe. Of old didst thou lose Homer:... now again another son thou weepest, and in a new sorrow art thou wasting away.... Nor so much did pleasant Lesbos mourn for Alcaeus, nor did the Teian town so greatly bewail her poet,... and not for Sappho but still for thee doth Mitylene wail her musical lament.... Ah me! when the mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and the curled tendrils of the anise, on a later day they live again, and spring In another year: but we men, we the great and mighty or wise, when once we have died, in hollow earth we sleep, gone down into silence.... Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth--thou didst know poison. To such lips as thine did it come, and was not sweetened? What mortal was so cruel that could mix poison for thee, or who could give thee the venom that heard thy voice? Surely he had no music in his soul,... But justice hath overtaken them all.'
Bion was born in Smyrna, or in a neighbouring village named Phlossa, and may have died at some date not far from 250 B.C. The statement of Moschus that Bion was poisoned by certain enemies appears to be intended as an assertion of actual fact. Of Moschus nothing distinct is known, beyond his being a native of Sicily.
ADONAIS;
AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS,
Author of _Endymion, Hyperion,_ etc.
[Greek:
Astaer prin men elampes eni zooisin eoos. Nun de thanon lampeis esperos en phthimenois.]
PLATO.
PREFACE.
[Greek:
Pharmakon aelthe Bion poti son stoma, pharmakon eides. Pos teu tois cheilessi potedrame kouk eglukanthae; Tis de Brotos tossouton anameros ae kerasai toi, Ae dounai laleonti to pharmakon; ekphugen odan.]
MOSCHUS, EPITAPH. BION.
It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem a criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age. 15 My known repugnance to the narrow principles of taste on which several of his earlier compositions were modelled proves at least that I am an impartial judge. I consider the fragment of _Hyperion_ as second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years. 20
John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty-fourth year, on the [23rd] of [February] 1821; and was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of 25 ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.
30 The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I have dedicated these unworthy verses was not less delicate and fragile than it was beautiful; and, where canker-worms abound, what wonder if its young flower was blighted in the bud? The savage criticism on his _Endymion_ which appeared in the _Quarterly Review_ produced the 35 most violent effect on his susceptible mind. The agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued; and the succeeding acknowledgments, from more candid critics, of the true greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to heal the wound thus wantonly inflicted.
40 It may be well said that these wretched men know not what they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders without heed as to whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made callous by many blows, or one, like Keats's, composed of more penetrable stuff. One of their associates is, to my knowledge, a most base and unprincipled 45 calumniator. As to _Endymion_, was it a poem, whatever might be its defects, to be treated contemptuously by those who had celebrated with various degrees of complacency and panegyric _Paris_, and _Woman_ and _A Syrian Tale_, and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne, and a long list of the illustrious 50 obscure? Are these the men who, in their venal good-nature, presumed to draw a parallel between the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What gnat did they strain at here, after having swallowed all those camels? Against what woman taken in adultery dares the foremost of these literary prostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone? 55 Miserable man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest, specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but used none.
The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's life were 60 not made known to me until the Elegy was ready for the press. I am given to understand that the wound which his sensitive spirit had received from the criticism of _Endymion_ was exasperated by the bitter sense of unrequited benefits; the poor fellow seems to have been hooted from the stage of life, no less by those on whom 65 he had wasted the promise of his genius than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and his care. He was accompanied to Rome, and attended in his last illness, by Mr. Severn, a young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been informed, 'almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every prospect to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend.' Had I known these circumstances before the completion 70 of my poem, I should have been tempted to add my feeble tribute of applause to the more solid recompense which the virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own motives. Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from 'such stuff as dreams are made of.' His conduct is a golden augury of the success of his future career. 75 May the unextinguished spirit of his illustrious friend animate the creations of his pencil, and plead against oblivion for his name!
ADONAIS.
1.
I weep for Adonais--he is dead! Oh 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, 5 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.'
2.
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 5 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.
3.
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; 5 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.
4.
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, 5 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.
5.
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, 5 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.
6.
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! 5 Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the 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 overpast.
7.
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 5 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.
8.
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; 5 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.
9.
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-- 5 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.
10.
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 5 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.
11.
One from a lucid urn of starry dew Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them; Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw The wreath upon him, like an anadem Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem; 5 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.
12.
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 5 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.
13.
And others came,--Desires and Adorations, Wingèd Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering incarnations Of Hopes and Fears, and twilight Phantasies; And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 5 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.
14.
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, Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 5 Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day; Afar the melancholy Thunder moaned, Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay.
15.
Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, And will no more reply to winds or fountains, Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day; 5 Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear Than those for whose disdain she pined away Into a shadow of all sounds:--a drear Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear.
16.
Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, Or they dead leaves; since her delight is flown, For whom should she have waked the sullen Year? To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, 5 Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both Thou, Adonais; wan they stand and sere Amid the faint companions of their youth, With dew all turned to tears,--odour, to sighing ruth.
17.
Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain; Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain Her mighty young with morning, doth complain, 5 Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, As Albion wails for thee: the curse of Cain Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest!
18.
Ah woe is me! Winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year. The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; The ants, the bees, the swallows, re-appear; Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier; 5 The amorous birds now pair in every brake, And build their mossy homes in field and brere; And the green lizard and the golden snake, Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake.
19.
Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean, A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst, As it has ever done, with change and motion, From the great morning of the world when first God dawned on chaos. In its steam immersed, 5 The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light; All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst, Diffuse themselves, and spend in love's delight The beauty and the joy of their renewèd might.
20.
The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender, Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath; Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death, And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath. 5 Nought we know dies: shall that alone which knows Be as a sword consumed before the sheath By sightless lightning? Th' intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose.
21.
Alas that all we loved of him should be, But for our grief, as if it had not been, And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene The actors or spectators? Great and mean 5 Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow. As long as skies are blue and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.
22.
_He_ will awake no more, oh never more! 'Wake thou,' cried Misery, 'childless Mother; Rise Out of thy sleep, and slake in thy heart's core A wound more fierce than his, with tears and sighs.' And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes, 5 And all the Echoes whom their Sister's song Had held in holy silence, cried 'Arise!' Swift as a thought by the snake memory stung, From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung.
23.
She rose like an autumnal Night that springs Out of the east, and follows wild and drear The golden Day, which on eternal wings, Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear 5 So struck, so roused, so rapt, Urania; So saddened round her like an atmosphere Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way, Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay.
24.
Out of her secret paradise she sped, Through camps and cities rough with stone and steel And human hearts, which, to her aery tread Yielding not, wounded the invisible Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell. 5 And barbèd tongues, and thoughts more sharp than they, Rent the soft form they never could repel, Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way.
25.
In the death-chamber for a moment Death, Shamed by the presence of that living might, Blushed to annihilation, and the breath Revisited those lips, and life's pale light Flashed through those limbs so late her dear delight. 5 'Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, As silent lightning leaves the starless night! Leave me not!' cried Urania. Her distress Roused Death: Death rose and smiled, and met her vain caress.
26.
'Stay yet awhile! speak to me once again! Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live! And in my heartless breast and burning brain That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive, With food of saddest memory kept alive, 5 Now thou art dead, as if it were a part Of thee, my Adonais! I would give All that I am, to be as thou now art:-- But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart.
27
'O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart Dare the unpastured dragon in his den? Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then 5 Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear?-- Or, hadst thou waited the full cycle when Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer.
28.
'The herded wolves bold only to pursue, The obscene ravens clamorous o'er the dead, The vultures to the conqueror's banner true, Who feed where desolation first has fed, And whose wings rain contagion,--how they fled, 5 When like Apollo, from his golden bow, The Pythian of the age one arrow sped, And smiled!--The spoilers tempt no second blow, They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.
29.
'The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn: He sets, and each ephemeral insect then Is gathered into death without a dawn, And the immortal stars awake again. So is it in the world of living men: 5 A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight Making earth bare and veiling heaven; and, when It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night.'
30.
Thus ceased she: and the Mountain Shepherds came, Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent. The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, 5 Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow. From her wilds Ierne sent The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue.
31.
'Midst others of less note came one frail form, A phantom among men, companionless As the last cloud of an expiring storm Whose thunder is its knell. He, as I guess, Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness 5 Actaeon-like; and now he fled astray With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, And his own thoughts along that rugged way Pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey.
32.
A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift-- A love in desolation masked--a power Girt round with weakness; it can scarce uplift The weight of the superincumbent hour. It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 5 A breaking billow;--even whilst we speak Is it not broken? On the withering flower The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek The life can burn in blood even while the heart may break.
33.
His head was bound with pansies overblown, And faded violets, white and pied and blue; And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, Round whose rude shaft dark ivy tresses grew Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, 5 Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart Shook the weak hand that grasped it. Of that crew He came the last, neglected and apart; A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart.
34.
All stood aloof, and at his partial moan Smiled through their tears; well knew that gentle band Who in another's fate now wept his own; As in the accents of an unknown land He sang new sorrow; sad Urania scanned 5 The Stranger's mien, and murmured 'Who art thou?' He answered not, but with a sudden hand Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, Which was like Cain's or Christ's--Oh that it should be so!
35.
What softer voice is hushed over the dead? Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown? What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, In mockery of monumental stone, The heavy heart heaving without a moan? 5 If it be he who, gentlest of the wise, Taught, soothed, loved, honoured, the departed one. Let me not vex with inharmonious sighs The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice.
36.