SHELLEY
287
in extenso, I refrain from injuring them by fragmentary citation.
From the "Adonais," I must quote a little, in order to show what Pantheism pervades it. He asserts of the dead Keats:—
"He is a portion of the loveliness
Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear;
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear;
And bursting, in its beauty and its might,
From trees, and beasts, and men, into the Heaven's light."
Which once he made more lovely: he doth bear
His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there
All new successions to the forms they wear;
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear;
And bursting, in its beauty and its might,
From trees, and beasts, and men, into the Heaven's light."
And, again:—
"The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.—Die
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!"
Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.—Die
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!"
And, finally:—
"That Light, whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty, in which all things work and move.
That Benediction, which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love,
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man, and beast, and earth, and air, and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality."
That Beauty, in which all things work and move.
That Benediction, which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love,
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man, and beast, and earth, and air, and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality."
Such doctrine as is expressed and implied in these lines differs little from what is called pure Theism.
