The meaning of the epithet
'sightless,' as applied to lightning, seems disputable. Of course the
primary sense of this word is 'not-seeing, blind'; but Shelley would
probably not have scrupled to use it in the sense of 'unseen.' I incline
to suppose that Shelley means 'unseen'; not so much that the lightning
is itself unseen as that its action in fusing the sword, which remains
concealed within the sheath, is unseen. But the more obvious sense of
'blind, unregardful,' could also be justified.
11. 8, 9. _Th' intense atom glows A moment, then is quenched in a most
cold repose._ The term 'th' intense atom' is a synonym for 'that which
knows,' or the mind. By death it is 'quenched in a most cold repose':
but the repose is not necessarily extinction.
+Stanza 21,+ 11. 1, 2. _Alas that all we loved of him should be, But for
our grief, as if it had not been._ 'All we loved of him' must be the
mind and character--the mental and personal endowments--of Adonais: his
bodily frame is little or not at all in question here. By these lines
therefore Shelley seems to intimate that the mind or soul of Adonais is
indeed now and for ever extinct: it lives no longer save in the grief of
the survivors.
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