+Stanza 4,+ 11. 1, 2. _His song, though very sweet, was low and faint, A simple strain._ It may be doubted whether this description of Hunt's poetry, had it been published in _Adonais_, would have been wholly pleasing to Hunt. Neither does it define, with any exceptional aptness, the particular calibre of that poetry. +Stanza 5,+ 11. 1, 2. _A mighty Phantasm, half concealed In darkness of his own exceeding light._ It seems to have been generally assumed that Shelley, in this stanza, describes one more of the 'Mountain Shepherds' (see st. 30)--viz. Coleridge. No doubt, if any poet or person is here indicated, it must be Coleridge: and the affirmative assumption is so far confirmed by the fact that in another poem--the _Letter to Maria Gisborne_, 1820--Shelley spoke of Coleridge in terms partly similar to these:-- 'You will see Coleridge; he who sits obscure In the exceeding lustre and the pure Intense irradiation of a mind Which, with its own internal lightning blind, Flags wearily through darkness and despair-- A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, A hooded eagle among blinking owls.' But the first question is--Does this cancelled stanza relate to a Mountain Shepherd at all? To speak of a Mountain Shepherd as a 'mighty Phantasm,' having an 'awful presence unrevealed,' seems to be taking a considerable liberty with language. To me it appears more likely that the stanza relates to some abstract impersonation--perhaps Death, or else Eternity. It is true that Death figures elsewhere in _Adonais_ (stanzas 7, 8, 25) under an aspect with which the present phrases are hardly consistent: but, in the case of a cancelled stanza, that counts for very little. In _Prometheus Unbound_ (Act ii, sc. 4) Eternity, symbolised in Demo-gorgon, is described in terms not wholly unlike those which we are now debating:-- 'I see a mighty Darkness Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom Dart round, as light from the meridian sun, Ungazed upon and shapeless. Neither limb, Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is A living Spirit.' As to the phrase in the cancelled stanza, 'In darkness of his own exceeding light,' it need hardly be observed that this is modified from the expression in Paradise Lost (Book 3):-- 'Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear.' 1. 5. _Thunder-smoke, whose skirts were chrysolite._ Technically, chrysolite is synonymous with the precious stone peridot, or olivine--its tint is a yellowish green. But probably Shelley thought only of the primary meaning of the word chrysolite, 'golden-stone,' and his phrase as a whole comes to much the same thing as 'a cloud with a golden lining.' +Stanza 6,+ 1. 1. _And like a sudden meteor._ We here have a fragmentary simile which may--or equally well may not--follow on as connected with St. 5. See on p. 147, for whatever it may be worth in illustration, the line relating to Coleridge:-- 'A cloud-encircled meteor of the air.'