'That I may kiss thee now for the last time--
But for as long as one short kiss may live!'
1. 3. _'My heartless breast.'_ Urania's breast will henceforth be
heartless, in the sense that, having bestowed her whole heart upon
Adonais, she will have none to bestow upon any one else: so I understand
the epithet.
1. 4. _'That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive,'_ &c. See
Bion (p. 64): 'This kiss will I treasure,' &c.
11. 7-9. _'I would give All that I am, to be as thou now art:--But I am
chained to Time, and cannot thence depart.'_ Founded on Bion (p. 64):
'While wretched I yet live, being a goddess, and may not follow thee.'
The alteration of phrase is somewhat remarkable. In Bion's Elegy the
Cyprian Aphrodite is 'a goddess,' and therefore immortal. In Shelley's
Elegy the Uranian Aphrodite does not speak of herself under any
designation of immortality or eternity, but as 'chained to _Time_,' and
incapable of departing from Time. As long as Time lives and operates,
Urania must do the same. The dead have escaped from the dominion of
Time: this Urania, cannot do. There is a somewhat similar train of
thought in _Prometheus Unbound_,--where Prometheus the Titan, after
enduring the torture of the Furies (Act 1), says--
'Peace is in the grave:
The grave holds all things beautiful and good,
I am a God, and cannot find it _there_.'
+Stanza 27,+ 11. 1-4. _'O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, Why
didst thou leave,'_ &c. This is founded on--and as usual spiritualized
from--the passage in Bion (p. 64); 'For why, ah overbold! didst thou
follow the chase, and, being so fair, why wert thou thus over-hardy to
fight with beasts?'
1. 4. _'Dare the unpastured dragon in his den.'_ This phrase must no
doubt be interpreted, not only in relation to the figurative Adonais.
but also to the actual Keats, Keats had dared the unpastured dragon in
his den, in the sense that he made a bold adventure into the poetical
field, under conditions certain to excite the ire of adherents of the
old school, whether in literature or in politics.
1. 6. _'Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear.'_ Urania
arraigns Keats for having made his inroad upon the dragon, unguarded by
wisdom or by scorn. His want of wisdom was shown (we may assume) by the
grave blemishes and defects in his _Endymion_, the wilful faults and
perverse excesses and extravagances which mark its composition, and
wantonly invited attack. His want of scorn was (according to Shelley's
view of the facts), clear enough: he had not been equal to despising a
spiteful attack, but had fretted himself to death under it. In terming
these two defensive weapons, wisdom and scorn, a mirrored shield and a
spear, Shelley was, I apprehend, thinking of the Orlando Furioso of
Ariosto. In that poem we read of a magic shield which casts a
supernatural and intolerable splendour, whereby every gazer is cast into
a trance; and of a spear whose lightest touch overthrows every opponent.
A sea-monster--not a dragon, so far as I recollect--becomes one of the
victims of the 'mirrored shield.'
11. 7, 8. _'The full cycle when Thy spirit should have filled its
crescent sphere.'_ The spirit of Keats is here assimilated to the moon,
which grows from a crescent into a spherical form.
1. 9. _'The monsters of life's waste.'_ The noxious creatures which
infest the wilderness of human life.
+Stanza 28,+ 1. 1. _'The herded wolves,'_ &c. These same 'monsters' are
now pictured under three aspects. They are herded wolves, which will
venture to pursue a traveller, but will not face him if he turns upon
them boldly; and obscene ravens, which make an uproar over dead bodies,
or dead reputations; and vultures, which follow in the wake of a
conqueror, and gorge upon that which is already overthrown. In the
succeeding stanza, 29, two other epithetal similes are bestowed upon the
monsters--they become 'reptiles' and 'ephemeral insects.' All these
repulsive images are of course here applied to critics of wilfully
obtuse or malignant mind, such as Shelley accounted the _Quarterly_
reviewer of Keats to be.
1. 5, &c. _'How they fled When, like Apollo,'_ &c. The allusion is to
perfectly well-known incidents in the opening poetic career of Lord
Byron. His lordship, in earliest youth, published a very insignificant
volume of verse named _Hours of Idleness_. The _Edinburgh
Review_--rightly in substance, but with some superfluous harshness of
tone--pronounced this volume to be poor stuff. Byron retaliated by
producing his satire entitled _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. With
this book he scored a success. His next publication was the generally
and enthusiastically admired commencement of _Childe Harold_, 1812;
after which date the critics justly acclaimed him as a poet--although in
course of time they grew lavishly severe upon him from the point of view
of morals and religion. I reproduce from the Pisan edition the
punctuation--'When like Apollo, from his golden bow'; but I think the
exact sense would be better brought out if we read--'When, like Apollo
from his golden bow, The Pythian,' &c.
11. 7, 8. _'The Pythian of the age one arrow sped, And smiled.'_
Byron is here assimilated to Apollo Pythius--Apollo the
Python-slayer.
The statue named Apollo Belvedere is regarded as representing
the god at the moment after he has discharged his arrow
at the python (serpent), his countenance irradiated with a half-smile
of divine scorn and triumph. The terms employed by Shelley
seem to glance more particularly at that celebrated statue: this
was the more appropriate as Byron had devoted to the same
figure two famous stanzas in the 4th canto of _Childe Harold_--
'Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
The God of life and poesy and light,' &c.
1. 9. _'They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low.'_ In the
Pisan edition we read 'that spurn them as they go.' No doubt the change
(introduced as in other instances named on pp. 105 and 113) must be
Shelley's own. The picture presented to the mind is more consistent,
according to the altered reading. The critics, as we are told in this
stanza, had at first 'fled' from Byron's arrow; afterwards they 'fawned
on his proud feet.' In order to do this, they must have paused in their
flight, and returned; and, in the act of fawning on Byron's feet, they
must have crouched down, or were 'lying low.' (Mr. Forman, in his
edition of Shelley, pointed this out.) With the words 'as they go' the
image was not self-consistent: for the critics could not be 'going,' or
walking away, at the same time when they were fawning on the poet's
feet. This last remark assumes that the words 'as they go' mean 'as the
critics go ': but perhaps (and indeed I think this is more than
probable) the real meaning was 'as the feet of Byron go'--as Byron
proceeds disdainfully on his way. If this was Shelley's original
meaning, he probably observed after a while that the words 'as _they_
go' seem to follow on with '_they_ fawn,' and not with 'the proud feet';
and, in order to remove the ambiguity, he substituted the expression
'lying low.'
+Stanza 29,+ 11. 1-3. _'The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn; He
sets, and each ephemeral insect then Is gathered into death.'_ The
spawning of a reptile (say a lizard or toad), and the death of an insect
(say a beetle or gnat), are two things totally unconnected. Shelley
however seems to link them together, as if this spawning were the origin
of the life, the brief life, of the insect. He appears therefore to use
'reptile,' not in the defined sense which we commonly attach to the
word, but in the general sense of 'a creeping creature,' such for
instance as a grub or caterpillar, the first form of an insect, leading
on to its final metamorphosis or development. Even so his natural
history is curiously at fault: for no grub or caterpillar can
spawn--which is the function of the fully-developed insect itself,
whether 'ephemeral' or otherwise. Can Shelley have been ignorant of
this?
1. 4. _'And the immortal stars awake again.'_ The imagery of this stanza
(apart from the 'reptiles' and 'ephemeral insects') deserves a little
consideration. The sun (says Shelley) arises, and then sets: when it
sets, the immortal stars awake again. Similarly, a godlike mind (say the
mind of Keats) appears, and its light illumines the earth, and veils the
heaven: when it disappears, 'the spirit's awful night' is left to 'its
kindred lamps.' This seems as much as to say that the splendour of a new
poetic genius appears to contemporaries to throw preceding poets into
obscurity; but this is only a matter of the moment, for, when the new
genius sinks in death, the others shine forth again as stars of the
intellectual zenith, to which the new genius is kindred indeed, but not
superior. With these words concludes the speech of Urania, which began
in stanza 25.
+Stanza 30,+ 1. 1. _The Mountain Shepherds_. These are contemporary
British poets, whom Shelley represents as mourning the death of Keats.
Shepherds are such familiar figures in poetry--utilized for instance in
Milton's _Lycidas_, as well as by many poets of antiquity--that the
introduction of them into Shelley's Elegy is no matter for surprise. Why
they should be '_mountain_ shepherds' is not so clear. Perhaps Shelley
meant to indicate a certain analogy between the exalted level at which
the shepherds dwelt and the exalted level at which the poets wrote. As
the shepherds do not belong to the low-country, so neither do the poets
belong to the flats of verse. Shelley may have written with a certain
degree of reference to that couplet in _Lycidas_--
'For we were nursed upon the self-same _hill_,
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill.'
1. 2. _Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent._ The garlands or
chaplets of the mountain shepherds have become sere because (it may be
presumed) the wearers, in their grief for the mortal illness and death
of Adonais, have for some little while left them unrenewed. Or possibly
the garlands withered at the moment when Spring 'threw down her kindling
buds' (stanza 16), I do not well understand the expression 'magic
mantles.' There seems to be no reason why the mantles of the shepherds,
considered as shepherds, should be magic. Even when we contemplate the
shepherds as poets, we may fail to discern why any magical property
should be assigned to their mantles. By the use of the epithet 'magic'
Shelley must have intended to bridge over the gap between the nominal
shepherds and the real poets, viewed as inspired singers: for this
purpose he has adopted a bold verbal expedient, but not I think an
efficient one. It may be noticed that the 'uncouth swain' who is
represented in _Lycidas_ as singing the dirge (in other words, Milton
himself) is spoken of as having a mantle--it is a 'mantle blue' (see the
penultimate line of that poem).
1. 3. _The Pilgrim of Eternity._ This is Lord Byron. As inventor of the
personage Childe Harold, the hero and so-called 'Pilgrim' of the poem
_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage_, and as being himself to a great extent
identical with his hero, Byron was frequently termed 'the Pilgrim.'
Shelley adopts this designation, which he magnifies into 'the Pilgrim of
Eternity,' He admired Byron most enthusiastically as a poet, and was
generally on easy--sometimes on cordial--terms with him as a man. He has
left us a fine and discriminating portrait of Byron in the 'Count
Maddalo' of his poem _Julian and Maddalo_, written in 1818. At times
however Shelley felt and expressed great indignation against Byron,
especially in reference to the ungenerous and cruel conduct of the
latter towards Miss Clairmont. See some brief reference to this matter
at p. 9.
11. 3-5. _Whose fame Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early
but enduring monument._ These phrases are not very definite. When fame
is spoken of as being bent over Byron's head, we must conceive of fame
as taking a form cognizable by the senses. I think Shelley means to
assimilate it to the rainbow; saying substantially--Fame is like an arc
bent over Byron's head, as the arc of the rainbow is bent over the
expanse of heaven. The ensuing term 'monument' applies rather to fame in
the abstract than to any image of fame as an arc.
11. 6, 7. _Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow._ No
doubt it would have been satisfactory to Shelley if he could have
found that Byron entertained or expressed any serious concern
at Keats's premature death, and at the hard measure which had
been meted out to him by critics. Byron did in fact admire
_Hyperion_; writing (in November 1821, not long after the publication
of _Adonais_)--'His fragment of _Hyperion_ seems actually inspired
by the Titans, and is as sublime as Aeschylus'; and other
utterances of his show that--being with difficulty persuaded to
suppose that Keats's health and life had succumbed to the attack
in the _Quarterly_--he fittingly censured the want of feeling or
want of reflection on the critic's part which had produced so
deplorable a result. But on the whole Byron's feeling towards
Keats was one of savage contempt during the young poet's life,
and of bantering levity after his death. Here are some specimens.
(From a letter to Mr. Murray, 12 October, 1820). 'There is such
a trash of Keats and the like upon my tables that I am ashamed
to look at them.... No more Keats, I entreat. Flay him alive:
if some of you don't, I must skin him myself. There is no bearing
the drivelling idiotism of the manikin.'
'"Who killed John Keats?"
"I," says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;
"'Twas one of my feats."'
'John Keats, who was killed off by one critique
Just as he really promised something great
If not intelligible, without Greek
Contrived to talk about the gods of late,
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow, his was an untoward fate!
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.'
11. 7-9. _From her wilds Ierne sent The sweetest lyrist of her saddest
wrong, And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue._ Ierne
(Ireland) sent Thomas Moore, the lyrist of her wrongs--an allusion to
the _Irish Melodies_, and some other poems. There is not, I believe, any
evidence to show that Moore took the slightest interest in Keats, his
doings or his fate: Shelley is responsible for Moore's love, grief, and
music, in this connexion. A letter from Keats has been published showing
that at one time he expected to meet Moore personally (see p. 45).
Whether he did so or not I cannot say for certain, but I apprehend not:
the published Diary of Moore, of about the same date, suggests the
negative.
+Stanza 31,+ 1. 1. _'Midst others of less note._ Shelley clearly means
'less note' than Byron and Moore--not less note than the 'one frail
form.'
1. 2. _Came one frail form,_ &c. This personage represents Shelley
himself. Shelley here describes himself under a profusion of
characteristics, briefly defined: it may be interesting to summarize
them, apart from the other details with which they are interspersed. He
is a frail form; a phantom among men; companionless; one who had gazed
Actaeon-like on Nature's naked loveliness, and who now fled with feeble
steps, hounded by his own thoughts; a pard-like spirit beautiful and
swift; a love masked in desolation; a power begirt with weakness,
scarcely capable of lifting the weight of the hour; a breaking billow,
which may even now be broken; the last of the company, neglected and
apart--a herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart; in Keats's
fate, he wept his own; his brow was branded and ensanguined. Most of
these attributes can be summed up under one heading--that of extreme
sensitiveness and susceptibility, which meet with no response or
sustainment, but rather with misjudgment, repulse, and outrage. Some
readers may think that Shelley insists upon this aspect of his character
to a degree rather excessive, and dangerously near the confines of
feminine sensibility, rather than virile fortitude. Apart from this
predominant type of character, Shelley describes his spirit as
'beautiful and swift'--which surely it was: and he says that, having
gazed upon Nature's naked loveliness, he had suffered the fate of a
second Actseon, fleeing 'o'er the world's wilderness,' and pursued by
his own thoughts like raging hounds. By this expression Shelley
apparently means that he had over-boldly tried to fathom the depths of
things and of mind, but, baffled and dismayed in the effort, suffered,
as a man living among men, by the very tension and vividness of his
thoughts, and their daring in expression. See what he says of himself,
in prose, on p. 92.
11. 4, 5. _He, as I guess, Had gazed,_ &c. The use of the verb 'guess'
in the sense of 'to surmise, conjecture, infer,' is now mostly counted
as an Americanism. This is not correct; for the verb has often been thus
used by standard English authors. Such a practice was not however common
in Shelley's time, and he may have been guided chiefly by the rhyming.
+Stanza 32,+ 1. 4. _The weight of the superincumbent hour._ This line is
scarcely rhythmical: to bring it within the ordinary scheme of ryhthm,
one would have to lay an exaggerated stress on two of its feet--'thé
supérincumbent.' Neither this treatment of the line, nor the line itself
apart from this treatment, can easily be justified.
+Stanza 33,+ 11. 1, 2. _His head was bound with pansies overblown,
And faded violets._ The pansy is the flower of thought, or memory:
we commonly call it heartsease, but Shelley no doubt uses it here
with a different, or indeed contrary, meaning. The violet indicates
modesty. A stanza from one of his lyrics may be appropriately
cited--_Remembrance_, dated 1821:--
'Lilies for a bridal bed,
Roses for a matron's head,
Violets for a maiden dead,
Pansies let _my_ flowers be.
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear;
Let no friend, however dear,
Waste a hope, a fear, for me.'
1. 3. _A light spear topped with a cypress cone._ The funereal cypress
explains itself.