EPIPSYCHIDION 303 Like light, all other sounds were pene trated 330 Twin Spheres of light who rule this This world of love, this me; and into birth Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end; So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway, Govern my sphere of being, night and day! Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might; 362 Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light; And, through the shadow of the seasons three, From Spring to Autumn's sere maturity, Light it into the Winter of the tomb, Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom. Thou too, O Comet, beautiful and fierce, Who drew the heart of this frail Universe Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, Our ministers, along the boundless Sea, 20 Draw the last spirit of the age of gold, Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar; And all the winds wandering along the shore Undulate with the undulating tide; There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide, And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, As clear as elemental diamond, Or serene morning air; and far beyond, The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year) 440 Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls It is a favored place. Famine or Blight, Pestilence, War, aud Earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way; To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm 470 There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, Veil after veil, each hiding some delight, Filling their bare and void interstices. None of the rustic island-people know; 'Tis not a tower of strength, though with its height It overtops the woods; but, for delight, Some wise and tender Ocean-King, ere crime Had been invented, in the world's young prime, Reared it, a wonder of that simple time, 490 Out of the mountains, from the living stone, 500 Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery ADONAIS AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS Αστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζώοισιν έπος. Adonais, perhaps the most widely read of the longer poems of Shelley, owes something of its charm to the fact noted by Mrs. Shelley that much in it seems now more applicable to Shelley himself than to the young and gifted poet whom he mourned. The elegy has contributed much to the feeling that links these two poets in one memory, though in life they were rather pleasant than intimate friends. Keats died at Rome, February 23, 1821; and Shelley composed the poem between the late days of May and June 11, or at the latest, June 16; it was printed at Pisa, under his own care, by July 13, and copies sent to London for issue there by his publisher. During the period of composition he felt that he was succeeding, and wrote of it as a highly wrought piece of art, and perhaps better, in point of composition, than anything I have written;' and after its completion, he says, 'The Adonais, in spite of its mysticism, is the least imperfect of my compositions, and, as the image of my regret and honor for poor Keats, I wish it to be so.' He continued to indulge hopes of its success, as in the case of The Cenci, though on a different plane, and wrote to Ollier,' I am especially curious to hear the fate of Adonais. I confess I should be surprised if that poem were born to an immortality of oblivion;' and, shortly after this, to Hunt, Pray tell me what effect was produced by Adonais. My faculties are shaken to atoms, and torpid. I can write nothing; and if Adonais had no success and excited no interest, what incentive can I have to write? A month or two later he writes to Gisborne, still strong in his faith in the poem, ... - I know what to think of Adonais, but what to think of those who confound it with the many bad poems of the day, I know not. It is absurd in any Review to criticise Adonais, and still more to pretend that the verses are bad.' His friends praised it, except Byron, who kept silence, perhaps, Shelley says, because he was mentioned in it. Shelley's letter to Severn has a peculiar interest : 'I send you the Elegy on poor Keats - and I wish it were better worth your acceptance. You will see, by the preface, that it was written before I could obtain any particular account of his last moments; all that I still know, was communicated to me by a friend PLATO. who had derived his information from Colonel Finch; I have ventured to express, as I felt, the respect and admiration which your conduct towards him demands. 'In spite of his transcendent genius, Keats never was, nor ever will be, a popular poet; and the total neglect and obscurity in which the astonishing remnants of his mind still lie, was hardly to be dissipated by a writer, who, however he may differ from Keats in more important qualities, at least resembles him in that accidental one, a want of popularity. 'I have little hope, therefore, that the poem I send you will excite any attention, nor do I feel assured that a critical notice of his writings would find a single reader. But for these considerations, it had been my intention to have collected the remnants of his compositions, and to have published them with a Life and Criticism. Has he left any poems or writings of whatsoever kind, and in whose possession are they? Perhaps you would oblige me by information on this point.' PREFACE Φάρμακον ἦλθε, Βίων, ποτὶ σὸν στόμα, φάρμακον εἶδες. MOSCHUS, EPITAPH. BION. It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem a criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our age. My known repugnance to the narrow principles of taste on which several of his earlier compositions were modelled prove, at least, that I am an impartial judge. I consider the fragment of Hyperion as second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years. John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty-fourth year, on the of 1821; and was buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an |