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;

Lives Cytherea's kiss

with him no more

- 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

A A

Of thee, and weep for him. My dearest dear!
Art dead, indeed? away my love did fly,

E'en as a dream. At home my widowed cheer

Keeps the loves idle; with thy latest sigh

My cestus perished too; thou rash one! why, oh why

"Did'st hunt? so fair, contend with monsters grim?" Thus Cypris wailed; but dead Adonis lies; For every gout of blood that fell from him,

She drops a tear; sweet flowers each dew supplies-Roses his blood, her tears anemonies.

Cypris! no longer in the thickets weep;

The couch is furnished! there in loving guise
Upon thy proper bed, that odorous heap,

The lovely body lies how lovely! as in sleep.

Come! in those vestments now array him,
In which he slept the live-long night with thee;
And in the golden settle gently lay him—

A sad yet lovely sight; and let him be

High heaped with flowers; tho' withered all when he
Surceased. With essences him sprinkle o'er

And ointments; let them perish utterly,
Since he, who was thy sweetest, is no more.
He lies in purple; him the weeping loves deplore.

Their curls are shorn: one breaks his bow; another His arrows and the quiver; this unstrings,

And takes Adonis' sandal off; his brother

In golden urn the fountain water brings ;

This bathes his thighs; that fans him with his wings. The Loves," Alas for Cypris!" weeping say: Hymen hath quenched his torches; shreds and flings The marriage wreath away; and for the lay Of love is only heard the doleful "weal-away."

Yet more than Hymen for Adonis weep

The Graces; shriller than Dione vent

Their shrieks; for him the Muses wail and keep
Singing the songs he hears not, with intent

To call him back: and would the nymph relent,
How willingly would he the Muses hear!

Hush! hush! to-day, sad Cypris! and consent
To spare thyself -

no more thy bosom tear

For thou must wail again, and weep another year.