1. 7. ’And, as a dying meteor,’ &c.  The dying meteor, in this simile, must represent the Splendour; the wreath of moonlight vapour stands for the pale limbs of Adonais; the cold night may in a general way symbolize the night of death.

1. 9. It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its eclipse. The Splendour flushed through the limbs of Adonais, and so became eclipsed,—­faded into nothingness.  This terminates the episode of the ‘quick Dreams,’ beginning with stanza 9.

+Stanza 13,+ 1. 1. And others came,—­Desires and Adorations, &c.  This passage is the first in which Shelley has direct recourse, no longer to the Elegy of Bion for Adonis, but to the Elegy of Moschus for Bion.  As he had spiritualized the impersonations of Bion, so he now spiritualizes those of Moschus.  The Sicilian lyrist gives us (see p. 65) Apollo, Satyrs, Priapi, Panes, and Fountain-fairies.  Shelley gives us Desires, Adorations, Persuasions, Destinies, Splendours, Glooms, Hopes, Fears, Phantasies, Sorrow, Sighs, and Pleasure.  All these ‘lament Adonais’ (stanza 14):  they are such emotional or abstract beings as ’he had loved, and moulded into thought from shape and hue and odour and sweet sound.’  The adjectival epithets are worth noting for their poetic felicity:  winged Persuasions (again hinting at [Greek:  epea pteroenta]), veiled Destinies, glimmering Hopes and Fears, twilight Phantasies.

1. 6. And Pleasure, blind with tears, &c.  The Rev. Stopford Brooke, in an eloquent Lecture delivered to the Shelley Society in June, 1889, dwelt at some length upon the singular mythopoeic gift of the poet.  These two lines are an instance in point, of a very condensed kind.  Pleasure, heart-struck at the death of Adonais, has abrogated her own nature, and has become blinded with tears; her eyes can therefore serve no longer to guide her steps.  Her smile too is dying, but not yet dead; it emits a faint gleam which, in default of eyes, serves to distinguish the path.  If one regards this as a mere image, it may be allowed to approach close to a conceit; but it suggests a series of incidents and figurative details which may rather count as a compendious myth.

1. 8. Came in slow pomp:—­the moving pomp might seem. The repetition of the word ‘pomp’ gives a certain poverty to the sound of this line; it can hardly, I think, have been deliberately intended.  In other respects this stanza is one of the most melodious in the poem.

+Stanza 14+, 11. 3, 4. Morning sought Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, &c.  Whether Shelley wished the reader to attribute any distinct naturalistic meaning to the ‘hair’ of Morning is a question which may admit of some doubt.  If he did so, the ‘hair unbound’ is probably to be regarded as streaks of rain-cloud; these cloudlets ought to fertilize the soil with their moisture; but, instead of that, they merely dim the eyes of Morning, and dull the beginnings of day.  In this instance,