In that poem we read of a magic shield which casts a
supernatural and intolerable splendour, whereby every gazer is cast into
a trance; and of a spear whose lightest touch overthrows every opponent.
A sea-monster--not a dragon, so far as I recollect--becomes one of the
victims of the 'mirrored shield.'
11. 7, 8. _'The full cycle when Thy spirit should have filled its
crescent sphere.'_ The spirit of Keats is here assimilated to the moon,
which grows from a crescent into a spherical form.
1. 9. _'The monsters of life's waste.'_ The noxious creatures which
infest the wilderness of human life.
+Stanza 28,+ 1. 1. _'The herded wolves,'_ &c. These same 'monsters' are
now pictured under three aspects. They are herded wolves, which will
venture to pursue a traveller, but will not face him if he turns upon
them boldly; and obscene ravens, which make an uproar over dead bodies,
or dead reputations; and vultures, which follow in the wake of a
conqueror, and gorge upon that which is already overthrown. In the
succeeding stanza, 29, two other epithetal similes are bestowed upon the
monsters--they become 'reptiles' and 'ephemeral insects.
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