simply to deal with the
Argument of _Adonais_. It has a thread--certainly a slender thread--of
narrative or fable; the personation of the poetic figure Adonais, as
distinct from the actual man John Keats, and the incidents with which
that poetic figure is associated. The numerals which I put in
parentheses indicate the stanzas in which the details occur.

(1) Adonais is now dead: the Hour which witnessed his loss mourns him,
and is to rouse the other Hours to mourn. (2) He was the son of the
widowed Urania, (6) her youngest and dearest son. (2) He was slain by a
nightly arrow--'pierced by the shaft which flies in darkness.' At the
time of his death Urania was in her paradise (pleasure-garden),
slumbering, while Echoes listened to the poems which he had written as
death was impending. (3) Urania should now wake and weep; yet wherefore?
'He is gone where all things wise and fair descend.' (4) Nevertheless
let her weep and lament. (7) Adonais had come to Rome. (8) Death and
Corruption are now in his chamber, but Corruption delays as yet to
strike. (9) The Dreams whom he nurtured, as a herdsman tends his flock,
mourn around him, (10) One of them was deceived for a moment into
supposing that a tear shed by itself came from the eyes of Adonais, and
must indicate that he was still alive. (11) Another washed his limbs,
and a third clipped and shed her locks upon his corpse, &c. (13) Then
came others--Desires, Adorations, Fantasies, &c. (14 to 16) Morning
lamented, and Echo, and Spring. (17) Aibion wailed. May 'the curse of
Cain light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast,' and scared away
its angel soul! (20) Can it be that the soul alone dies, when nothing
else is annihilated? (22) Misery aroused Urania: urged by Dreams and
Echoes, she sprang up, and (23) sought the death-chamber of Adonais,
(24) enduring much suffering from 'barbed tongues, and thoughts more
sharp than they.' (25) As she arrived, Death was shamed for a moment,
and Adonais breathed again: but immediately afterwards 'Death rose and
smiled, and met her vain caress.' (26) Urania would fain have died along
with Adonais; but, chained as she was to Time, this was denied her. (27)
She reproached Adonais for having, though defenceless, dared the dragon
in his den. Had he waited till the day of his maturity, 'the monsters of
life's waste' would have fled from him, as (28) the wolves, ravens, and
vultures had fled from, and fawned upon, 'the Pythian of the age.' (