rania,
But on this point see pp. 50 to 52.

1. 1. _Weep again._ The poem seems to indicate that Urania, slumbering,
is not yet aware of the death of Adonais. Therefore she cannot as yet
have wept for his death: but she may have wept in anticipation that he
would shortly die, and thus can be now adjured to 'weep _again_.' (See
also p. 143.)

1. 2. _He died._ Milton.

1. 4. _When his country's pride,_ &c. Construe: When the priest,
the slave, and the liberticide, trampled his country's pride, and
mocked [it] with many a loathed rite of lust and blood. This of
course refers to the condition of public affairs and of court-life in
the reign of Charles II. The inversion in this passage is not a
very serious one, although, for the sense, slightly embarrassing.
Occasionally Shelley conceded to himself great latitude in inversion:
as for instance in the _Revolt of Islam_, canto 3, st. 34,

'And the swift boat the little waves which bore
Were cut by its keen keel, though slantingly,'

which means 'And the little waves, which bore the swift boat,
were cut,' &c.; also in the _Ode to Naples_, strophe 4,

'Florence, beneath the sun,
Of cities fairest one,
Blushes within her bower for Freedom's expectation.'

1. 8. _His clear sprite._ To substitute the word 'sprite' for 'spirit,'
in an elevated passage referring to Milton, appears to me one of the
least tolerable instances of make-rhyme in the whole range of English
poetry. 'Sprite' is a trivial and distorted misformation of 'spirit';
and can only, I apprehend, be used with some propriety (at any rate, in
modern poetry) in a more or less bantering sense. The tricksy elf Puck
may be a sprite, or even the fantastic creation Ariel; but neither
Milton's Satan nor Milton's Ithuriel, nor surely Milton himself, could
possibly be a sprite, while the limits of language and of common sense
are observed.

1. 9. _The third among the Sons of Light._ At first sight this phrase
might seem to mean 'the third-greatest poet of the world': in which case
one might suppose Homer and Shakespear to be ranked as the first and
second. But it may be regarded as tolerably clear that Shelley is here
thinking only of _epic_ poets; and that he ranges the epic poets
according to a criterion of his own, which is thus expressed in his
_Defence of Poetry_ (written in the same year as _Adonais_, 1821):
'Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet; that is, the second
poet the series of