Shelley; an essay by Francis Thompson
page 22 of 31 (70%)
page 22 of 31 (70%)
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and who Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day, to the Dreams that were the flock of the dead shepherd, the Dreams Whom near the living streams Of his young spirit he fed; and whom he taught The love that was its music; of whom one sees, as she hangs mourning over him, Upon the silken fringe of his faint eyes, Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies A tear some dream has loosened from his brain! Lost angel of a ruined Paradise! She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain She faded like a cloud which hath outwept its rain. In the solar spectrum, beyond the extreme red and extreme violet rays, are whole series of colours, demonstrable, but imperceptible to gross human vision. Such writing as this we have quoted renders visible the invisibilities of imaginative colour. One thing prevents _Adonais_ from being ideally perfect: its lack of Christian hope. Yet we remember well the writer of a popular memoir on Keats proposing as "the best consolation for the mind pained by this sad record" Shelley's inexpressibly sad exposition of Pantheistic immortality: |
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