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 renewed might.