Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 334-342
Nor let us weep that our delight is fled
Far from these carrion kites that scream below;
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead;
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now.
Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow
Back to the burning fountain whence it came,
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow
Through time and change, unquenchably the same,
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame.
- Now the speaker is telling us to stop weeping. But… didn't he just spend thirty-eight stanza basically telling us why we should mourn? We guess he's changed his mind.
- He says that "our delight" (Adonais-Keats) has gone far away from the "carrion kites" (corpse-eating birds) on earth. He is now in a more eternal place, a place that endures. We can't visit him in Heaven. Only "pure spirits" get to hang out up there.
- Shelley uses the imagery of a burning fountain to symbolize eternal life. Keats is now part of that fountain.
- It never changes. Therefore, Keats is always part of this energy. That's Shelley's version of heaven.
- Meanwhile, here on earth, "cold embers" are choking us with shame. He's glad that Keats is free of all that.
- That's why he thinks we shouldn't mourn. Keats is in a better place. So… yay?