Adonais

work by Shelley

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Adonais, pastoral elegy by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written and published in 1821 to commemorate the death of his friend and fellow poet John Keats earlier that year.

Referring to Adonis, the handsome young man of Greek mythology who was killed by a wild boar, the title was probably taken from Bion’s Lament for Adonis, which Shelley had translated into English. Written in 55 Spenserian stanzas, Adonais is ranked with John Milton’s “Lycidas” for its purity of classical form. In it the poet mourns the death of the fair Adonais but ends by placing him among the immortals, declaring that, while

We decay
Like corpses in a charnel,

the creative spirit of Adonais,

Illustration of "The Lamb" from "Songs of Innocence" by William Blake, 1879. poem; poetry

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like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.