'
1. 3. _A light spear topped with a cypress cone._ The funereal cypress
explains itself.
1. 4. _Dark ivy tresses._ The ivy indicates constancy in friendship.
+Stanza 34,+ 1. 1. _His partial moan._ The epithet 'partial' is
accounted for by what immediately follows--viz. that Shelley 'in
another's fate now wept his own.' He, like Keats, was the object of
critical virulence, and he was wont (but on very different grounds) to
anticipate an early death. See (on p. 34) the expression in a letter
from Shelley--'a writer who, however he may differ,' &c.
1. 4. _As in the accents of an unknown land He sang new sorrow._ It is
not very clear why Shelley should represent that he, as one of the
Mountain Shepherds, used a language different (as one might infer) from
that of his companions. All those whom he particularizes were his
compatriots. Perhaps however Shelley merely means that the language
(English) was that of a land unknown to the Greek deity Aphrodite
Urania. The phrase 'new sorrow' occurs in the Elegy by Moschus (p. 65).
By the use of this phrase Shelley seems to mean not merely that the
death of Keats was a recent and sorrowful event, but more especially
that it constituted a new sorrow--one more sorrow--to Shelley himself.
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