No More Learning

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 _40
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. _45

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! _50
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.

7.
To that high Capital, where kingly Death _55
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 _60
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 _65
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 _70
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-winged Ministers of thought,
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams _75
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, _80
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, _85
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. _90

11.
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; _95
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.

12.
Another Splendour on his mouth alit, _100
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; _105
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,
Winged Persuasions and veiled Destinies, _110
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, _115
Came in slow pomp;--the moving pomp might seem
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.

14.