wouldst be with that which thou dost seek._ This
phrase is addressed by the poet to anybody, and more especially to
himself. As in stanza 38--'The pure spirit shall flow Back to the
burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal.'

11. 7-9. _Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are
weak The glory thy transfuse with fitting truth to speak._ I follow here
the punctuation of the Pisan edition--with a comma after 'words,' as
well as after 'sky, flowers,' &c. According to this punctuation, the
words of Rome, as well as her sky and other beautiful endowments, are
too weak to declare at full the glory which they impart; and the
inference from this rather abruptly introduced recurrence to Rome is (I
suppose), that the spiritual glory faintly adumbrated by Rome can only
be realised in that realm of eternity to which death gives access. Taken
in this sense, the 'words' of Rome appear to mean 'the beautiful
language spoken in Rome'--the Roman or Latin language, as modified into
modern Italian. The pronunciation of Italian in Rome is counted
peculiarly pure and rich: hence the Italian axiom, 'lingua toscana in
bocca romana'--Tuscan tongue in Roman mouth. At first sight, it would
seem far more natural to punctuate thus: Rome's azure sky, Flowers,
ruins, statues, music,--words are weak The glory, &c. The sense would
then be--Words are too weak to declare at full the glory inherent in the
sky, flowers, &c. of Rome. Yet, although this seems a more
straightforward arrangement for the words of the sentence, as such, it
is not clear that such a comment on the beauties of Rome would have any
great relevancy in its immediate context.

+Stanza 53,+ 1. 2. _Thy hopes are gone before_, &c. This stanza contains
some very pointed references to the state of Shelley's feelings at the
time when he was writing _Adonais_; pointed, but not so clearly defined
as to make his actual meaning transparent. We are told that his hopes
are gone before (i.e. have vanished before the close of his life has
come), and have departed from all things here. This may partly refer to
the deaths of William Shelley and of Keats; but I think the purport of
the phrase extends further, and implies that Shelley's hopes
generally--those animating conceptions which had inspired him in early
youth, and had buoyed him up through many adversities--are now waning in
disappointment. This is confirmed by the ensuing statement--that 'a
light is past from