* * * *
*
2.
And ever as he went he swept a lyre
Of unaccustomed shape, and
... strings
Now like the ... of impetuous fire
Which shakes the forest with
its murmurings,
Now like the rush of the aerial
wings 5
Of the enamoured wind among the treen,
Whispering unimaginable things,
And dying on the streams of dew serene
Which feed the unmown meads with ever-during green.
3.
And then came one of sweet and earnest
looks,
Whose soft smiles to his dark
and night-like eyes
Were as the clear and ever-living brooks
Are to the obscure fountains
whence they rise,
Showing how pure they are:
a paradise 5
Of happy truth upon his forehead low
Lay, making wisdom lovely,
in the guise
Of earth-awakening morn upon the brow
Of star-deserted heaven while ocean gleams below.
4.
His song, though very sweet, was low and
faint,
A simple strain.
* * * *
*
5.
A mighty Phantasm,
half concealed
In darkness of his own exceeding
light,
Which clothed his awful presence unrevealed,
Charioted on the ... night
Of thunder-smoke, whose skirts
were chrysolite. 5
6.
And like a sudden meteor which outstrips
The splendour-winged chariot
of the sun,
...
eclipse
The armies of the golden stars,
each one
Pavilioned in its tent of
light—all strewn 5
Over the chasms of blue night—
PREFACE.
Line 1. Adonais. There is nothing to show
positively why Shelley adopted the name Adonais as
a suitable Hellenic name for John Keats. I have
already suggested (p. 59) that he may perhaps have
wished to indicate, in this indirect way, that his
poem was founded partly upon the Elegy of Bion for
Adonis. I believe the name Adonais was not really
in use among the Greeks, and is not anywhere traceable
in classical Grecian literature. It has sometimes
been regarded as a Doricized form of the name Adonis:
Mr. William Cory says that it is not this, but would
properly be a female form of the same name. Dr.
Furnivall has suggested to me that Adonais is ’Shelley’s
variant of Adonias, the women’s yearly mourning
for Adonis.’ Disregarding details, we may
perhaps say that the whole subject of his Elegy is
treated by Shelley as a transposition of the lament,
as conceived by Bion, of the Cyprian Aphrodite for
Adonis; and that, as he changes the Cyprian into the
Uranian Aphrodite, so he changes the dead youth from
Adonis into Adonais.
1. 4. Motto from the poet Plato. This
motto has been translated by Shelley himself as follows:
’Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled:—
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.’
