And in _Prometheus Unbound_ (Act i)-- 'Regard this earth Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise? And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts, With fear and self-contempt and barren hope.' Again (Act ii, sc. 4)-- 'And self-contempt, bitterer to drink than blood.' +Stanza 38,+ 1. 1. _Nor let us weep,_ &c. So far as the broad current of sentiment is concerned, this is the turning-point of Shelley's Elegy. Hitherto the tone has been continuously, and through a variety of phases, one of mourning for the fact that Keats, the great poetical genius, is untimely dead. But now the writer pauses, checks himself, and recognises that mourning is not the only possible feeling, nor indeed the most appropriate one. As his thought expands and his rapture rises, he soon acknowledges that, so far from grieving for Keats who _is_ dead, it were far more relevant to grieve for himself who is _not_ dead. This paean of recantation and aspiration occupies the remainder of the poem. 1. 2. _These carrion kites._ A term of disparagement corresponding nearly enough to the 'ravens' and 'vultures' of st. 28. 1. 3. _He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead._ With such of the dead as have done something which survives themselves. It will be observed that the phrase 'he wakes _or_ sleeps' leaves the question of personal or individual immortality quite open. As to this point see the remarks on p. 54, &c. 1. 4. Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. This is again addressed to the 'deaf and viperous murderer,' regarded for the moment as a 'carrion kite.' As kites are eminently high flyers, the phrase here used becomes the more emphatic. This line of Shelley's is obviously adapted from a passage in Milton's _Paradise Lost_, where Satan addresses the angels in Eden (Book 4)-- 'Ye knew me once, no mate For you, there sitting where ye durst not soar.' 1. 5. _The pure spirit shall flow_, &c. The spirit which once was the vital or mental essence--the soul--of Adonais came from the Eternal Soul, and, now that he is dead, is re-absorbed into the Eternal Soul: as such, it is imperishable. 1. 9. _Whilst thy cold embers choke_, &c. The spirit of Adonais came as a flame from the 'burning fountain' of the Eternal, and has now reverted thither, he being one of the 'enduring dead.' But the 'deaf and viperous murderer' must not hope for a like destiny. His spirit, after death, will be merely like 'cold embers,' cumbering the 'hearth of shame.' As a rhetorical antithesis, this serves its purpose well: no doubt Shelley would not have pretended that it is a strictly reasoned antithesis as well, or furnishes a full account of the _post-mortem_ fate of the _Quarterly_ reviewer.