'They die--the dead return not. Misery
Sits near an open grave, and calls them over,
A youth with hoary hair and haggard eye.'
11. 3, 4. _'Slake in thy hearts core A wound--more fierce than his, with
tears and sighs.'_ Construe: Slake with tears and sighs a wound in thy
heart's core--a wound more fierce than his.' See (p. 101) the remarks,
apposite to st. 4, upon the use of inversion by Shelley.
1. 5. _All the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes._ We had not hitherto
heard of 'Dreams' in connexion with Urania, but only in connexion with
Adonais himself. These 'Dreams that watched Urania's eyes' appear to be
dreams in the more obvious sense of that word-visions which had haunted
the slumbers of Urania.
1. 8. _Swift as a thought by the snake memory stung._ The context
suggests that the 'thought' here in question is a grievous thought, and
the term 'the snake memory' conveys therefore a corresponding impression
of pain. Shelley however had not the usual feeling of repulsion or
abhorrence for snakes and serpents. Various passages could be cited to
prove this; more especially Canto 1 of _The Revolt of Islam,_ where the
Spirit of Good is figured under the form of a serpent.
1. 9. _Front her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung._ Urania.
She is in her own nature a splendour, or celestial deity: at the present
moment her brightness is 'fading,' as being overcast by sorrow and
dismay. 'Her ambrosial rest' does not appear to signify anything more
precise than 'her rest, proper to an immortal being.' The forms 'sprung,
sung,' &c. are constantly used by Shelley instead of 'sprang, sang,' &c.
+Stanza 23,+ 1. 5. _Had left the Earth a corpse._ Shelley, in this
quasi-Greek poem, takes no count of the fact that the sun, when it
ceases to illumine one part of the earth, is shining upon another part.
He treats the unillumined part as if it were the whole earth--which has
hereby become 'a corpse.'
+Stanza 24,+ 1. 2, _Through camps and cities_, &c. In highly figurative
language, this stanza pictures the passage of Urania from 'her secret
paradise' to the death-chamber of Adonais in Rome, as if the spiritual
essence and external form of the goddess were wounded by the uncongenial
atmosphere of human malice and detraction through which she has to pass.
The whole description is spiritualized from that of Bion (p. 63):--
'Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled--the thorns pierce
Her hastening feet, and drink her sacred blood.'
11. 4,5. _The invisible Palms of her tender feet._ Shelley more than
once uses 'palms' for 'soles' of the feet. See _Prometheus Unbound_, Act
4:--
'Our feet now, every palm,
Are sandalled with calm';
and _The Triumph of Life_:--
'As she moved under the mass
Of the deep cavern, and, with palms so tender
Their tread broke not the mirror of the billow,
Glided along the river.'
Perhaps Shelley got this usage from the Italian: in that language the
web-feet of aquatic birds are termed 'palme.'
11. 8, 9. _Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, Paved with
eternal flowers that undeserving way._ The tears of May are rain-drops;
young, because the year is not far advanced. 'That undeserving way'
seems a very poor expression. See (p. 64) the passage from Bion: 'A tear
the Paphian sheds for each blood-drop of Adonis, and tears and blood on
the earth are turned to flowers.'
+Stanza 25,+ 1. 3. _Death ... blushed to annihilation._ This very daring
hyperbole will hardly bear--nor does it want--manipulation into prose.
Briefly, the nature of Death is to be pallid: therefore Death, in
blushing, abnegates his very nature, and almost ceases to be Death.
11. 3, 4. _The breath Revisited those lips_, &c. As Death tended towards
'annihilation,' so Adonais tended towards revival.
1. 7. _'Silent lightning.'_ This means, I suppose, lightning
unaccompanied by thunder--summer lightning.
+Stanza 26,+ 1. 1. _'Stay yet awhile.'_ See Bion (p. 64): 'Stay, Adonis!
stay, dearest one!'