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.
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