Adonais

I am really fond of Shelley's Adonais because of its close resemblance to my favorite poem Milton's Lycidas.  There are apparent connections between the two poems- mainly that they are pastoral elegies.  However my favorite uniting factor of the two poems is the evolution from despair to hope.  In both poems,  the beginning of the poem is full of despair. For example in Adonais, Shelley calls for all of the world to lament and mourn the death of dear Adonais.  The mourning is augmented because Keat's, Adonais, died prematurely: 

The bloom, whose petals nipped before they blew


Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;


The broken lily lies-the storm is overpast. 

Yet as the poem progresses, there is a turn.  Hope is found for dear Adonais and the speaker gives a new command: 

Mourn not for Adonais.-

Thou young Dawn,
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee


The spirit thou lamentest is not gone;


Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan!

These words express such hope and resolve such despair for the reader.  Furthermore, it celebrates not only the eternity of Keats's spirit but the eternity of his poetry.  I believe this is part of Shelley's key concerns.  He is comforting himself with this poem but even more so he is reminding the world that Keats's influence (his poetry) will stand for all time because it is now part of nature; it is beauty. The effect of both of these poems, Lycidas and Adonais, is to resolve the despair of death.