II
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
· (no date)
Published 01/07/1880
Part of A Lament for Adonis
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;
And his Cypris grows mad at the thin gasping breath,
While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory:
And his eye-balls lie quenched with the weight of his brows.
The rose fades from his lips, and, upon them just parted,
The kiss dies which Cypris 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.