BION.

IDYL I.

LAMENT FOR ADONIS.

I AND and the Loves Adonis dead deplore:
The beautiful Adonis is indeed

Departed, parted from us. Sleep no more
In purple, Cypris! but in watchet weed,

All-wretched! beat thy breast and all aread
"Adonis is no more." The loves and I

Lament him. Oh! her grief to see him bleed,

Smitten by white tooth on his whiter thigh, Out-breathing life's faint sigh upon the mountain high!

Adown his snowy flesh drops the black gore;
Stiffen beneath his brow his sightless eyes;
The rose is off his lip; with him no more
Lives Cytherea's kiss but with him dies.

He knows not that her lip his cold lip tries,
But she finds pleasure still in kissing him.

Deep is his thigh-wound; her's yet deeper lies,
The Oreads' eyes are dim;

E'en in her heart.

His hounds whine piteously; in most disordered trim

Distraught, unkempt, unsandalled, Cypris rushes
Madly along the tangled thicket-steep;

Her sacred blood is drawn by bramble-bushes;
Her skin is torn; with wailings wild and deep
She wanders through the valley's weary sweep,
Calling her boy-spouse, her Assyrian fere.
But from his thigh the purple jet doth leap
Up to his snowy navel; on the clear

Whiteness beneath his paps the deep-red streaks appear.

"Alas for Cypris!" sigh the Loves, "deprived

Of her fair spouse, she lost her beauty's pride;
Cypris was lovely whilst Adonis lived,

But with Adonis all her beauty died."

Mountains, and oaks, and streams, that broadly glide, Or wail or weep for her; in tearful rills

For her gush fountains from the mountain-side; Redden the flowers from grief; city and hills With ditties sadly wild lorn Cytherea fills.

Alas for Cypris! dead is her Adonis,

And Echo "dead Adonis" doth resound.

Who would not grieve for her whose love so lone is ?

But when she saw his cruel, cruel wound,

The purple gore that ran his wan thigh round,

She spread her arms, and lowly murmured: "stay thee, That I may find thee as before I found,

My hapless own Adonis! and embay thee,

And mingle lips with lips, whilst in my arms I lay thee.

Up for a little! kiss me back again

The latest kiss brief as itself that dies

In being breathed, until I fondly drain
The last breath of thy soul, and greedywise
Drink it into my core. I will devise

To guard it as Adonis—since from me

To Acheron my own Adonis flies,

And to the drear dread king; but I must be A goddess still and live, nor can I follow thee.

"But thou, Persephona! my spouse receive,
Mightier than I, since to thy chamber drear
All bloom of beauty falls: but I must grieve
Unceasingly. I have a jealous fear

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