“Oh, weep for Adonais! The quick dreams,
The passion-winged ministers of thought
Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
The Love which was its music, wander not—
Wander no more from kindling brain to brain,
But droop there whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,
They ne’er will gather strength, or find a home again.”
The weak place in this impassioned commemorative poem lies in its waste of fire upon the heads of those British critics, who—as flimsy, pathetic legends used to run—slew the poet by their savagery. Keats did not range among giants; but he was far too strong a man to die of the gibes of the Quarterly, or the jeers of Blackwood. Not this; but all along, throughout his weary life—even amid the high airs of Hampstead, where nightingales sang—he sang, too,—