11. 7, 8. As if to stem A greater loss with one which was more weak. ‘To stem a loss’ is a very lax phrase—­and more especially ’to stem a loss with another loss.’  ’To stem a torrent—­or, the current of a river,’ is a well-known expression, indicating one sort of material force in opposition to another.  Hence we come to the figurative expression, ‘to stem the torrent of his grief,’ &c.  Shelley seems to have yielded to a certain analogy in the sentiment, and also to the convenience of a rhyme, and thus to have permitted himself a phrase which is neither English nor consistent with sense.  Line 8 seems to me extremely feeble throughout.

1. 9. And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. The construction runs—­’Another would break, &c., and [would] dull, &c.’  The term ‘the barbed fire’ represents of course ‘the winged reeds,’ or arrows:  actual reeds or arrows are now transmuted into flame-tipped arrows (conformable to the spiritual or immaterial quality of the Dreams):  the fire is to be quenched against the frost of the death-cold cheek of Adonais.  ‘Frozen tears—­frozen cheek:’  Shelley would scarcely, I apprehend, have allowed this repetition, but for some inadvertence.  I am free to acknowledge that I think the whole of this stanza bad.  Its raison d’etre is a figurative but perfectly appropriate and straightforward passage in Bion:  Shelley has attempted to turn that into a still more figurative passage suitable for Adonais, with a result anything but happy.  He fails to make it either straightforward or appropriate, and declines into the super-subtle or wiredrawn.

+Stanza 12,+ 1. 1. Another Splendour. Another luminous Dream.

1. 2. That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath, &c.  Adonais (Keats), as a poet, is here figured as if he were a singer; consequently we are referred to his ‘mouth’ as the vehicle of his thoughts or poetic imaginings—­not to his hand which recorded them.

1. 3. To pierce the guarded wit. To obtain entry into the otherwise unready minds of others—­the hearers (or readers) of the poet.

11. 5, 6. The damp death Quenched its caress upon his icy lips. This phrase is not very clear.  I understand it to mean—­The damps of death [upon the visage of Adonais] quenched the caress of the Splendour [or Dream] imprinted on his icy lips.  It might however be contended that the term ‘the damp death’ is used as an energetic synonym for the ‘Splendour’ itself.  In this case the sense of the whole passage may be amplified thus:  The Splendour, in imprinting its caress upon the icy lips of Adonais, had its caress quenched by the cold, and was itself converted into dampness and deathliness:  it was no longer a luminous Splendour, but a vaporous and clammy form of death.  The assumption that ‘the damp death’ stands as a synonym for the ‘Splendour’ obtains some confirmation from the succeeding phrase about the ’dying meteor’—­for this certainly seems used as a simile for the ‘Splendour.’