THE " ADONAIS" OF SHELLEY. 25 



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 niourners, 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. 



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 the 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. 



Around the dead body he assembles, by personi- 

 fication, " The quick dreams, The passion-winged 

 ministers of thought, Who were his flocks," one of 

 whom is thus described, with great delicacy of fancy 

 and pathetic feeling, bending over the lifeless body : 



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 't was her own ; as with no stain 



She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 



The inanimate forms of nature are also represented 

 as lost in mourning : 



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 ; 



VOL. i. 1833. D 



