When Adonais fought and fell
upon fate’s foreign field,
and blood was bleeding from his wounds
upon his sword and shield,
a stranger sought to save his life
as he lay on the Earth,
while I made merry, mocked and moved
my mug of measured mirth.
When Adonais breathed adieu
that fatal day in spring;
he faced ferocious foe and fray
as such a petty thing.
And I, unweeping, did not see
his last and final hour,
so some may choose to label me:
his traitor in the tower.
But Adonais, cruelly slain,
in pain, when dying, smiled.
And I know that he smiled for me:
his broken-hearted child.