1. _He lives, he wakes--'tis Death is dead, not he._ In
the preceding three stanzas Adonais is contemplated as being alive,
owing to the very fact that his death has awakened him 'from the dream
of life'--mundane life. Death has bestowed upon him a vitality superior
to that of mundane life. Death therefore has performed an act contrary
to his own essence as death, and has practically killed, not Adonais,
but himself.
1. 2. _Thou young Dawn._ We here recur to the image in st. 14, 'Morning
sought her eastern watch-tower,' &c.
1. 5. _Ye caverns and ye forests_, &c. The poet now adjures the caverns,
forests, flowers, fountains, and air, to 'cease to moan.' Of the flowers
we had heard in st. 16: but the other features of Nature which are now
addressed had not previously been individually mentioned--except, to
some extent, by implication, in st. 15, which refers more directly to
'Echo.' The reference to the air had also been, in a certain degree,
prepared for in stanza 23. The stars are said to smile on the Earth's
despair. This does not, I apprehend, indicate any despair of the Earth
consequent on the death of Adonais, but a general condition of woe.
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