wn, apposite to his particular poetic quality, the sphere which
Keats is now to control had hitherto remained unoccupied because no poet
of that special type of genius which it demanded had as yet appeared.
Its affinity was for Keats, and for no one else. This is an implied
attestation of Keats's poetic originality.

1. 9. _Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng!_ The winged
throne is, I think, a synonym of the 'sphere' itself--not a throne
within the sphere: 'winged,' because the sphere revolves in space. Yet
the statement in stanza 45 that 'the inheritors of unfulfilled renown
rose from their thrones' (which cannot be taken to represent distinct
spheres or constellations) suggests the opposite interpretation. Keats
is termed 'thou Vesper of our throng' because he is the latest member of
this glorified band--or, reckoning the lapse of ages as if they were but
a day, its 'evening star.' The exceptional brilliancy of the Vesper star
is not, I think, implied--though it may be remotely suggested.

+Stanza 47,+ 1. 3. _Clasp with thy panting soul_, &c. The significance
of this stanza--perhaps a rather obscure one--requires to be estimated
as a whole. Shelley summons any person who persists in mourning for
Adonais to realise to his own mind what are the true terms of comparison
between Adonais and himself. After this, he says in this stanza no more
about Adonais, but only about the mourner. He calls upon the mourner to
consider (1) the magnitude of the planet earth; then, using the earth as
his centre, to consider (2) the whole universe of worlds, and the
illimitable void of space beyond all worlds; next he is to consider (3)
what he himself is--he is confined within the day and night of our
planet, and, even within those restricted limits, he is but an
infinitesimal point. After he shall have realised this to himself, and
after the tension of his soul in ranging through the universe and
through space shall have kindled hope after hope, wonderment and
aspiration after aspiration and wonderment, then indeed will he need to
keep his heart light, lest it make him sink at the contemplation of his
own nullity.

1. 9. _And lured thee to the brink._ This phrase is not definitely
accounted for in the preceding exposition. I think Shelley means that
the successive hopes kindled in the mourner by the ideas of a boundless
universe of space and of spirit will have lured him to the very brink of
mundane life--to the borderl