"He lives, he wakes—'tis Death is dead, not he;
Mourn not for Adonais....
He is made one with Nature. There is heard
His voice in all her music, from the moan
Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird....
He is a portion of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely. He doth bear
His part, while the One Spirit's plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear....
The inheritors of unfulfilled renown
Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought,
Far in the unapparent. Chatterton
Rose pale, his solemn agony had not
Yet faded from him; Sidney, as he fought,
And as he fell, and as he lived and loved,
Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot,
Arose . . . . . . . . . . . .
And many more, whose names on earth are dark,
But whose transmitted effluence cannot die
So long as fire outlives the parent spark,
Rose, robed in dazzling immortality.
'Thou art become as one of us,' they cry;
'It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long
Swung blind in unascended majesty,
Silent alone amid an heaven of song.
Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!'"[3]
We search the history of literature in vain for a parallel to this elegy. It is instant transfiguration after death—a poetic transfiguration of a purely naturalistic and purely human kind. To Shelley, Keats's true apotheosis was what he expresses in the words: "He is made one with Nature."
[1] "Death, the immortalising winter, flew
Athwart the stream—and time's printless torrent grew
A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name
Of Adonais"
—Fragment on Keats: Shelley.
[2] Note the melodiousness of the Fairy Song:
"Shed no tear! O shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! O weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root's white core," &c.
[3] Shelley: Adonais