found in
any writing of Shelley. The conception, which may amount to Theism, is
equally consistent with Pantheism. Even in his most anti-theistic poem,
_Queen Mab_, Shelley said in a note--'The hypothesis of a pervading
Spirit, co-eternal with the universe, remains unshaken.'

+Stanza 43,+ 11. 1-3. _He is a portion of the loveliness Which ones he
made more lovely. He doth bear his part_, &c. The conception embodied in
this passage may become more clear to the reader if its terms are
pondered in connexion with the passage of Shelley's prose extracted on
p. 56--'The existence of distinct individual minds,' &c. Keats, while a
living man, had made the loveliness of the universe more lovely by
expressing in poetry his acute and subtle sense of its beauties--by
lavishing on it (as we say) 'the colours of his imagination,' He was
then an 'individual mind'--according to the current, but (as Shelley
held) inexact terminology. He has now, by death, wholly passed out of
the class of individual minds; and he forms a portion of the Universal
Mind (the 'One Spirit') which is the animation of the universe.

11. 3, 4. _While the One Spirit's plastic stress Sweeps through the dull
dense world_, &c. The function ascribed in these lines to the One Spirit
is a formative or animating function: the Spirit constitutes the life of
'trees and beasts and men.' This view is strictly within the limits of
Pantheism.

+Stanza 44,+ 1. 1. _The splendours of the firmament of time_, &c. As
there are stars in the firmament of heaven, so are there
splendours--luminous intellects--in the firmament of time. The stars,
though at times eclipsed, are not extinguished; nor yet the mental
luminaries. This asseveration may be considered in connexion with the
passage in st. 5: 'Others more sublime, Struck by the envious wrath of
man or God, Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime.'

11. 5, 6. _When lofty thought Lifts a young heart_, &c. The sense of
this passage may be paraphrased thus:--When lofty thought lifts a young
heart above its mundane environments, and when its earthly doom has to
be determined by the conflicting influences of love, which would elevate
it, and the meaner cares and interests of life, which would drag it
downwards, then the illustrious dead live again in that heart--for its
higher emotions are nurtured by their noble thoughts and
aspirations,--and they move, like exhalations of light along dark and
stormy air. This illustrates the