+Stanza 48,+ 1. 1. _Or go to Rome._ This is still addressed to the
mourner, the 'fond wretch' of the preceding stanza. He is here invited
to adopt a different test for 'knowing himself and Adonais aright';
namely, he is to visit Rome, and muse over the grave of the youthful
poet.
11. 1, 2. _Which is the sepulchre, Oh not of him, but of our joy._ Keats
is not entombed in Rome: his poor mortal remains are there entombed,
and, along with them, the joy which we felt in him as a living and
breathing presence.
11. 2, 3. _'Tis nought That ages, empires, and religions, &c._ Keats,
and others such as he, derive no adventitious honour from being buried
in Rome, amid the wreck of ages, empires, and religions: rather they
confer honour. He is among his peers, the kings of thought, who, so far
from being dragged down in the ruin of institutions, contended against
that ruin, and are alone immortal while all the rest of the past has
come to nought. This consideration may be said to qualify, but not to
reverse, that which is presented in stanza 7, that Keats 'bought, with
price of purest breath, a grave among the eternal'; those eternal ones,
buried in Rome, include many of the 'kings of thought.
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