Adonais - a poem by Shelley

 In an introduction to an essay by Eiseley (elsewhere), I came across these lines from Shelley:

        The splendours of the firmament of time
       May be eclips'd, but are extinguish'd not;
        Like stars to their appointed height they climb,
        And death is a low mist which cannot blot
        The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought
        Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair,
        And love and life contend in it for what
        Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air.

Looking up the complete poem, it is Adonais, written by him on Keats' on his early passing away from this Earth. Across 55 passages, it is longer than the usual poems I end up reading, but the lines above got me in, and I did read through. And it is something one needs to read a few times to perhaps absorb well. I still imbibe Four Quartets though it has been years and years of reading it. Some poems or sometimes fragments do pass through into the present continuous of one's head and lifetime, and for that, one is glad.

A few more passages from Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats

IX

        Oh, weep for Adonais! The quick Dreams,
        The passion-winged Ministers of thought,
        Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams
        Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught
        The love which was its music, wander not—
        Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain,
        But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn their lot
        Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain,
They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again.

XXI

        Alas! that all we lov'd of him should be,
        But for our grief, as if it had not been,
        And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me!
        Whence are we, and why are we? of what scene
        The actors or spectators? Great and mean
        Meet mass'd in death, who lends what life must borrow.
        As long as skies are blue, and fields are green,
        Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow,
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.

XXXII

       A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift—

       A Love in desolation mask'd—a Power

       Girt round with weakness—it can scarce uplift

       The weight of the superincumbent hour;

       It is a dying lamp, a falling shower,

       A breaking billow; even whilst we speak

       Is it not broken? On the withering flower

       The killing sun smiles brightly: on a cheek

The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break.

XXXIX

       Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep,

       He hath awaken'd from the dream of life;

       'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep

       With phantoms an unprofitable strife,

       And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife

       Invulnerable nothings. We decay

       Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief

       Convulse us and consume us day by day,

And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

If anything, the poem has inspired me to read Keats again, his poems, and more than that, his letters - keen to get the feel of his voice and thoughts again.
Here Adonais
Here Keats