' This last expression must be construed with a certain
latitude. The change from an imagined chaos into a divinely-ordered
cosmos is not necessarily coincident with the interchange of seasons,
and especially the transition from Winter to Spring, upon the planet
Earth. All that can be safely propounded on such a subject is that the
sequence of seasons is a constant and infallible phenomenon of Nature in
that condition of our planet with which alone we have, or can have, any
acquaintance.
1. 5. _In its steam immersed_: i.e. in the steam--or vapour or
exhalation--of the 'quickening life.'
+Stanza 20,+ 11. 1, 2. _The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit
tender, Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath._ 'This spirit
tender' is the 'quickening life' of the renascent year; or briefly the
Spring. By 'the leprous corpse' Shelley may mean, not the corpse of an
actual leper, but any corpse in a loathsome state of decay. Even so
abhorrent an object avails to fertilize the soil, and thus promotes the
growth of odorous flowers.
1. 3. _Like incarnations of the stars_, &c. These flowers--star-like
blossoms--illumine death and the grave: the light which would belong to
them as stars is converted into the fragrance proper to them as flowers.
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