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ADONAIS

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS

Αστὴρ πρὶν μὲν ἔλαμπες ἐνὶ ζώοισιν έπος.
Νῦν δὲ θανών, λάμπεις ἔσπερος ἐν φθιμένοις.

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.'

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open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.

The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I have dedicated these unworthy verses was not less delicate and fragile than it was beautiful; and where cankerworms abound what wonder if its young flower was blighted in the bud? The savage criticism on his Endymion, which appeared in the Quarterly Review, produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind; the agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs; a rapid consumption ensued, and the succeeding acknowledgments from more candid critics of the true greatness of his powers were ineffectual to heal the wound thus wɛntonly inflicted.

It may be well said that these wretched men know not what they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders without heed as to whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made callous by many blows, or one like Keats's composed of more penetrable stuff. One of their associates is, to my knowledge, a most base and unprincipled calumniator. As to Endymion, was it a poem, whatever might be its defects, to be treated contemptuously by those who had celebrated with various degrees of complacency and panegyric Paris and Woman and a Syrian Tale, and Mrs. Lefanu and Mr. Barrett and Mr. Howard Payne and a long list of the illustrious obscure? Are these the men who in their venal good nature presumed to draw a parallel between the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What gnat did they

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strain at here after having swallowed all those camels? Against what woman taken in adultery dares the foremost of these literary prostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone? Miserable man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers but used none.

He

The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's life were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready for the press. I am given to understand that the wound which his sensitive spirit had received from the criticism of Endymion was exasperated by the bitter sense of unrequited benefits; the poor fellow seems to have been hooted from the stage of life no less by those on whom he had wasted the promise of his genius than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and his care. was accompanied to Rome and attended in his last illness by Mr. Severn, a young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been informed, 'almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every prospect to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend.' Had I known these circumstances before the completion of my poem, I should have been tempted to add my feeble tribute of applause to the more solid recompense which the virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own motives. Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from such stuff as dreams are made of. His conduct is a golden augury of the success of his future career may the unextinguished Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the creations of his pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name!

In darkness? where was lorn Urania When Adonais died? With veilèd eyes, 'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath,

Rekindled all the fading melodies, With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,

He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.

III

Oh, weep for Adonais - he is dead! Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep!

Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed

Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep Like his a mute and uncomplaining sleep;

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