The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest riven;
The massy earth, the sphered skies are given:
I am borne darkly, fearfully afar;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven,
The soul of Adonais like a star
Beacons from the abode where the eternal are.

The Soul of Adonais?--Adonais, who is but

A portion of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely.

After all, to finish where we began, perhaps the poems on which the lover
of Shelley leans most lovingly, which he has oftenest in his mind, which
best represent Shelley to him and which he instinctively reverts to when
Shelley's name is mentioned are some of the shorter poems and detached
lyrics. Here Shelley forgets for a while all that ever makes his verse
turbid; forgets that he is anything but a poet, forgets sometimes that he
is anything but a child; lies back in his skiff, and looks at the clouds.
He plays truant from earth, slips through the wicket of fancy into
heaven's meadow, and goes gathering stars. Here we have that absolute
virgin-gold of song which is the scarcest among human products, and for
which we can go to but three poets--Coleridge, Shelley, Chopin, {8} and
perhaps we should add Keats. _Christabel_ and _Kubla-Khan_; _The
Skylark_, _The Cloud_, and _The Sensitive Plant_ (in its first two
parts). _The Eve of Saint Agnes_ and _The Nightingale_; certain of the