No More Learning

Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting.
She lost her fair spouse and so lost her fair smile:
When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's consenting,
Whose fairness is dead with him: woe worth the while!
All the mountains above and the oaklands below
Murmur, ah, ah, Adonis! the streams overflow
Aphrodite's deep wail; river-fountains in pity
Weep soft in the hills, and the flowers as they blow
Redden outward with sorrow, while all hear her go
With the song of her sadness through mountain and city.


V.

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead,
Fair Adonis is dead--Echo answers, Adonis:
Who weeps not for Cypris, when bowing her head
She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies?
--When, ah, ah! --she saw how the blood ran away
And empurpled the thigh, and, with wild hands flung out,
Said with sobs: "Stay, Adonis! unhappy one, stay,
Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee about
With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss!
Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again,
For the last time, beloved,--and but so much of this
That the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the strain!
--Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth,
To my heart, and, the love-charm I once more receiving
May drink thy love in it and keep of a truth
That one kiss in the place of Adonis the living.
Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far,
My Adonis, and seekest the Acheron portal,--
To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar,
While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal,
And follow no step! O Persephone, take him,
My husband!
--thou'rt better and brighter than I,
So all beauty flows down to thee: _I_ cannot make him
Look up at my grief; there's despair in my cry,
Since I wail for Adonis who died to me--died to me--
Then, I fear _thee_! --Art thou dead, my Adored?
Passion ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied to me,
Cypris is widowed, the Loves seek their lord
All the house through in vain. Charm of cestus has ceased
With thy clasp! O too bold in the hunt past preventing,
Ay, mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast! "
Thus the goddess wailed on--and the Loves are lamenting.


VI.

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead.
She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed,
And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden-close,
Her tears, to the windflower; his blood, to the rose.


VII.

I mourn for Adonis--Adonis is dead.
Weep no more in the woods, Cytherea, thy lover!
So, well: make a place for his corse in thy bed,
With the purples thou sleepest in, under and over
He's fair though a corse--a fair corse, like a sleeper.
Lay him soft in the silks he had pleasure to fold
When, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeper
Enclosed his young life on the couch made of gold.
Love him still, poor Adonis; cast on him together
The crowns and the flowers: since he died from the place,
Why, let all die with him; let the blossoms go wither,
Rain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face.