ADONIS, a poem

Venus Lamenting the Death of Adonis (1655-1657)
by Luigi Primo

LOVE is dying; lay him low;
Pile the blossoms for his bed:
     Here, where languid poppies blow,
Pillow soft his beauteous head!
Let their dream-breath float around him,
Even as my arms enwound him—
     In the summer, long ago!

     Say not it was yesterday!
Hours have been as years since then!
     And shall rapture, fled away,
Never more return again?
Love, with throbbing heart of fire,—
     Love, with thrilling voice and low,—
Hast thou quenchèd fond desire
     In this breast of snow?

     Then, O Death! I cry to you
From my grief immortal:
     Goddess kind—of all most true—
Ope to me your portal!
In your calm my senses steep;
     Close mine eyes, from tears grown dim;
Give me sleep—I ask but sleep—
     In the grave, with him.

     Can it be that flowers will spring
Where all lifeless love shall lie?
     Can it be that birds will sing,
Though Adonis die?

     Never earthly bloom, I wis,
With his beauty could compare;
     Never voice was sweet as his
Who lieth there;
And, thou blue Idalian sky,
     Thou didst smile upon our lot,
And I knew my love must die,—
     But believed it not!

     Whither now to take my way?
If I seek on mountains bare,
     Or in caverns hid from day,—
Shall I find him there?
Will the rivers give him back,
     Or the woods of Adon tell?
     Will the hounds that loved him well
Follow in his track?
Ah, the distance matters not,
     Nor the way I, mournful, tread:
Every path leads from the spot
     Where my love lies dead!

"Adonis" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems (1916) Volume II.