Elizabeth Barrett Browning - A Lament For Adonis (The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Vol. I) lyrics

I mourn for Adonis Adonis is dead
 Fair Adonis is dead and
The Loves are lamenting sleep, Cypris
No more on thy purple-strewed bed:
 Arise, wretch stoled in black
Beat thy breast unrelenting
And shriek to the worlds
"Fair Adonis is dead!"

I mourn for Adonis the Loves are lamenting
 He lies on the hills in
His beauty and death
The white tusk of a boar
Has transpierced his white thigh
 Cytherea grows mad at his
Thin gasping breath
While the black blood drips down
On the pale ivory
 And his eyeballs lie quenched with
The weight of his brows
The rose fades from his lips


And upon them just parted
 The kiss dies the goddess
Consents not to lose
Though the kiss of the Dead
Cannot make her glad hearted:
 He knows not who kisses him
Dead in the dews

I mourn for Adonis the Loves are lamenting
 Deep, deep in the thigh
Is Adonis's wound
But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting
 The youth lieth dead while
His dogs howl around
And the nymphs weep aloud from
The mists of the hill
 And the poor Aphrodité
With tresses unbound
All dishevelled, unsandaled
Shrieks mournful and shrill
 Through the dusk of the groves
The thorns, tearing her feet
Gather up the red flower of
Her blood which is holy
 Each footstep she takes and
The valleys repeat
The sharp cry she utters and
Draw it out slowly
 She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian
On him her own youth, while the dark
Blood spreads over his body
 The chest taking hue from the
Gash in the limb
And the bosom, once ivory, turning to ruddy

Ah, ah, Cytherea! the Loves are lamenting
 She lost her fair spouse and
So lost her fair smile:
When he lived she was fair
By the whole world's consenting
 Whose fairness is dead with him:
Woe worth the while!
All the mountains above and
The oaklands below  Murmur, ah, ah
Adonis! the streams overflow
Aphrodité's deep wail river-fountains in pity
 Weep soft in the hills
And the flowers as they blow
Redden outward with sorrow
While all hear her go
 With the song of her sadness
Through mountain and city

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead
 Fair Adonis is dead Echo answers
Adonis: Who weeps not for Cypris
When bowing her head
 She stares at the wound where
It gapes and astonies?
When, ah, ah! she saw how the blood ran away
 And empurpled the thigh, and, with
Wild hands flung out
Said with sobs: "Stay, Adonis!
Unhappy one, stay
 Let me feel thee once more
Let me ring thee about
With the clasp of my arms
And press kiss into kiss!
 Wait a little, Adonis, and
Kiss me again, for the last time, beloved
And but so much of this
 That the kiss may learn life from
The warmth of the strain!
Till thy breath shall exude from
Thy soul to my mouth,  To my heart, and
The love-charm I once more receiving
May drink thy love in it and keep of a truth
 That one kiss in the place
Of Adonis the living
Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest me far
 My Adonis, and seekest
The Acheron portal
To Hell's cruel King goest down with a scar
 While I weep and live on
Like a wretched immortal
And follow no step! O Persephoné, take him
 My husband! thou'rt better and
Brighter than I, so all beauty flows down to
Thee: I cannot make him
 Look up at my grief there's
Despair in my cry
Since I wail for Adonis who died
To me died to me
 Then, I fear thee! Art thou dead
My Adored? Passion ends like a dream in the
Sleep that's denied to me
 Cypris is widowed
The Loves seek their lord
All the house through in vain
Charm of cestus has ceased
 With thy clasp! O too bold
In the hunt past preventing
Ay, mad, thou so fair
To have strife with a beast!"
 Thus the goddess wailed on and
The Loves are lamenting

Ah, ah, Cytherea! Adonis is dead
 She wept tear after tear with
The blood which was shed
And both turned into flowers
For the earth's garden-close
 Her tears, to the windflower his blood
To the rose

I mourn for Adonis Adonis is dead
 Weep no more in the woods, Cytherea
Thy lover! So, well: make a place for
His corse in thy bed
 With the purples thou sleepest in
Under and over
He's fair though a corse a fair corse
Like a sleeper
 Lay him soft in the silks
He had pleasure to fold
When, beside thee at night
Holy dreams deep and deeper
 Enclosed his young life on the
Couch made of gold love him still
Poor Adonis cast on him together
 The crowns and the flowers: since
He died from the place
Why, let all die with him
Let the blossoms go wither
 Rain myrtles and olive-buds down
On his face rain the myrrh down, let all
That is best fall a-pining
 Since the myrrh of his life
From thy keeping is swept
Pale he lay, thine Adonis
In purples reclining
 The Loves raised their voices
Around him and wept
They have shorn their bright curls
Off to cast on Adonis
 One treads on his bow
On his arrows, another
One breaks up a well-feathered quiver
And one is  Bent low at a sandal
Untying the strings
And one carries the vases of
Gold from the springs
 While one washes the wound
And behind them a brother
Fans down on the body sweet
Air with his wings

Cytherea herself now the Loves are lamenting
 Each torch at the door Hymenæus blew out
And, the marriage-wreath dropping it's
Leaves as repenting
 No more "Hymen, Hymen, "
Is chanted about
But the ai ai instead "Ai alas!" is begun
 For Adonis
And then follows "Ai Hymenæus!"
The Graces are weeping for Cinyris' son
 Sobbing low each to each
"His fair eyes cannot see us!"
Their wail strikes more shrill
Than the sadder Dioné's
 The Fates mourn aloud
For Adonis, Adonis
Deep chanting he hears not a
Word that they say:  He would hear
But Persephoné has him in keeping
Cease moan, Cytherea! leave pomps for to day
 And weep new when a new
Year refit's thee for weeping