Its tone is
ultra-sentimental, and perhaps on that account it was condemned. The
simile at the close of the present stanza is ambitious, but by no means
felicitous.
+Stanza 4,+ 11. 1, 2. _His song, though very sweet, was low and faint, A
simple strain._ It may be doubted whether this description of Hunt's
poetry, had it been published in _Adonais_, would have been wholly
pleasing to Hunt. Neither does it define, with any exceptional aptness,
the particular calibre of that poetry.
+Stanza 5,+ 11. 1, 2. _A mighty Phantasm, half concealed In darkness
of his own exceeding light._ It seems to have been generally
assumed that Shelley, in this stanza, describes one more of the
'Mountain Shepherds' (see st. 30)--viz. Coleridge. No doubt, if
any poet or person is here indicated, it must be Coleridge: and
the affirmative assumption is so far confirmed by the fact that in
another poem--the _Letter to Maria Gisborne_, 1820--Shelley spoke
of Coleridge in terms partly similar to these:--
'You will see Coleridge; he who sits obscure
In the exceeding lustre and the pure
Intense irradiation of a mind
Which, with its own internal lightning blind,
Flags wearily through darkness and despair--
A cloud-encircled meteor of the air,
A hooded eagle among blinking owls.
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