The fair ADONIS left the realms of light,
Bow'd his bright locks, and, fated from his birth
To change eternal, mingled with the earth;--
With darker horror shook the conscious wood,
580 Groan'd the sad gales, and rivers blush'd with blood;
On cypress-boughs the Loves their quivers hung,
Their arrows scatter'd, and their bows unstrung;
And BEAUTY'S GODDESS, bending o'er his bier,
Breathed the soft sigh, and pour'd the tender tear.--
585 Admiring PROSERPINE through dusky glades
Led the fair phantom to Elysian shades,
Clad with new form, with finer sense combined,
And lit with purer flame the ethereal mind.
--Erewhile, emerging from infernal night,
590 The bright Assurgent rises into light,
Leaves the drear chambers of the insatiate tomb,
And shines and charms with renovated bloom.--
While wondering Loves the bursting grave surround,
And edge with meeting wings the yawning ground,
595 Stretch their fair necks, and leaning o'er the brink
View the pale regions of the dead, and shrink;
Long with broad eyes ecstatic BEAUTY stands,
Heaves her white bosom, spreads her waxen hands;
Then with loud shriek the panting Youth alarms,
600 "My Life! my Love!" and springs into his arms."


[_Adonis_. l. 576. The very antient story of the beautiful Adonis
passing one half of the year with Venus, and the other with Proserpine
alternately, has had variety of interpretations. Some have supposed that