, why shrink, my heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!
A light is past from the revolving year,
And man and woman; and what still is dear 5
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near:
'Tis Adonais calls! Oh hasten thither!
No more let life divide what death can join together.

54.

That light whose smile kindles the universe,
That beauty in which all things work and move,
That benediction which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which, through the web of being blindly wove 5
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

55.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given.
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! 5
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar!
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

CANCELLED PASSAGES OF ADONAIS,

AND OF ITS PREFACE.

The expression of my indignation and sympathy. I will allow myself a
first and last word on the subject of calumny as it relates to me. As an
author I have dared and invited censure. If I understand myself, I have
written neither for profit nor for fame: I have employed my poetical
compositions and publications simply as the instruments of that sympathy
between myself and others which the ardent and unbounded love I
cherished for my kind incited me to acquire. I expected all sorts of
stupidity and insolent contempt from those.... These compositions
(excepting the tragedy of _The Cenci_, which was written rather to try
my powers than to unburden my full heart) are insufficiently....
Commendation then perhaps they deserve, even from their bitterest
enemies; but they have not obtained any corresponding popularity. As a
man, I shrink from notice and regard: the ebb and flow of the world
vexes me: I desire to be left in peace. Persecution, contumely, and
calumny, have been heaped upon me in profuse measure; and domestic
conspiracy and legal oppression have vio