hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,' &c.--

though the idea of actual sleep is not raised in this admirably
beautiful and admirably realistic description. Perhaps the poem, of all
others, in which the conception of death is associated with that of
sleep with the most poignant pathos, is that of Edgar Poe entitled _For
Annie_--

'Thank Heaven, the crisis,
The danger, is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last,
And the fever called living
Is conquered at last,' &c.--

where real death is spoken of throughout, in a series of exquisite and
thrilling images, as being real sleep. In Shelley's own edition of
_Adonais_, the lines which we are now considering are essentially
different. They run

'Till darkness and the law
Of mortal change shall fill the grave which is her maw.'

This is comparatively poor and rude. The change to the present reading
was introduced by Mrs. Shelley in her edition of Shelley's Poems in
1839. She gives no information as to her authority: but there can be no
doubt that at some time or other Shelley himself made the improvement.
See p. 33.

+Stanza 9,+ 1. i. _The quick Dreams._ With these words begins a passage
of some length, which is closely modelled upon the passage of Bion (p.
64), 'And around him the Loves are weeping,' &c.: modelled upon it, and
also systematically transposed from it. The transposition goes on the
same lines as that of Adonis into Adonais, and of the Cyprian into the
Uranian Aphrodite; i.e. the personal or fleshly Loves are spiritualized
into Dreams (musings, reveries, conceptions) and other faculties or
emotions of the mind. It is to be observed, moreover, that the trance of
Adonis attended by Cupids forms an incident in Keats's own poem of
_Endymion_, book ii--

'For on a silken couch of rosy pride,
In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth
Of fondest beauty; fonder, in fair sooth,
Than sighs could fathom or contentment reach.

* * * * *

... Hard by
Stood serene Cupids, watching silently.
One, kneeling to a lyre, touched the strings,
Muffling to death the pathos with his wings,
And ever and anon uprose to look
At the youth's slumber; while another took
A willow-bough distilling odorous dew,
And shoot it on his hair; another flew
In through the woven roof, and fluttering-wise
Rained violets upon his sleeping eyes.'

1. 2. _The