sation of life deserve to be named death.
The transition from one emotion to another in this passage, and
also in the preceding stanza, 'Nor let us weep,' &c., resembles
the transition towards the close of _Lycidas_--

'Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,' &c.

The general view has considerable affinity to that which is
expounded in a portion of Plato's dialogue _Phaedo_, and which has
been thus summarised. 'Death is merely the separation of soul
and body. And this is the very consummation at which Philosophy
aims: the body hinders thought,--the mind attains to truth
by retiring into herself. Through no bodily sense does she perceive
justice, beauty, goodness, and other ideas. The philosopher
has a lifelong quarrel with bodily desires, and he should welcome
the release of his soul.'

1. 3. _'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions_, &c. We, the so-called
living, are in fact merely beset by a series of stormy visions which
constitute life; all our efforts are expended upon mere phantoms, and
are therefore profitless; our mental conflict is an act of trance,
exercised upon mere nothings. The very energetic expression, 'strike
with our spirit's knife invulnerable nothings,' is worthy of remark. It
will be remembered that, according to Shelley's belief, 'nothing exists
but as it is perceived': see p. 56. The view of life expressed with
passionate force in this passage of _Adonais_ is the same which forms
the calm and placid conclusion of _The Sensitive Plant_, a poem written
in 1820;--

'But, in this life
Of error, ignorance, and strife,
Where nothing is but all things seem.
And we the shadows of the dream,

It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.

That garden sweet, that Lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odours there,
In truth have never passed away:
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.

For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death nor change; their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.'

11. 6, 7. _We decay Like corpses in a charnel_, &c. Human life consists
of a process of decay. While living, we are consumed by fear and grief;
our disappointed hopes swarm in our living persons like worms in our
corpses.

+Stanza 40,+ 1. 1. _He has outsoared the shadow of our night._ As human
life was in the last stanza rep