Tag Archives: Adonais

Philip Pullman’s Unorthodox Afterlife

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2023

In “Amber Spyglass,” Pullman rebels against orthodox versions of the afterlife and creates his own.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "World", "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep", Aeschylus, Afterlife, Amber Spyglass, Dante, Divine Comedy, Eumenides, Golden Compass, Henry Vaughan, Inferno, life after death, Mary Elizabeth Frye, Oresteia trilogy, Paradiso, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Philip Pullman | Comments closed

Do Not Stand by My Grave and Weep

By Robin Bates | Published: November 3, 2022

As Slovenes this past week visited the graves of those who have passed on, I thought of Frye’s poem “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep", Afterlife, Amber Spyglass, Dante, death, Inferno, Mary Elizabeth Frye, Percy Shelley, Philip Pullman | Comments closed

Wanted: An Elegy to Mourn Covid Victims

By Robin Bates | Published: January 4, 2022

To mourn our 800,000+ covid dead, America needs a good poetic elegy.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Up Late", death and dying, elegies, grieving, Nick Laird, Percy Shelley | Comments closed

Do Not Stand by My Grave and Cry

By Robin Bates | Published: May 1, 2021

As I remember my eldest son, this Clare Harner Lyon poem brings me peace.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Immortality", Clare Harner Lyon, death and dying, Easter, Holy Spirit, Percy Shelley | Comments closed

Finding Strength in a Time of Covid

By Robin Bates | Published: December 14, 2020

Robinson Jeffers offers a poem that reminds us of spiritual resources available to us in these dark days.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Answer", American Dream, COVID-19, death and dying, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robinson Jeffers | Comments closed

Remembering My Son 20 Years Later

By Robin Bates | Published: April 29, 2020

Remembering my oldest son, who died 20 years ago, I turn to Shelley’s elegy for Keats.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, death and dying, death of a child, In Memoriam, Percy Bysshe Shelley | Comments closed

The Song of Night’s Sweet Bird

By Robin Bates | Published: October 6, 2013

Shelley’s elegy to Keats, “Adonais,” gives us a rich vision of our relationship with death.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Ode to a Nightingale", death and dying, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley | Comments closed

I Weep for Adonais–He Is Dead

By Robin Bates | Published: April 7, 2011

When W. B. Yeat died on January 28, 1939, a despondent W. H. Auden wrote, “The day of his death was a dark cold day,” an instance of how we look to the weather for confirmation of our distress. The idea of a dying friend slipping away without leaving a trace is an unsettling one. Much better if the weather functions as a second witness, which it seems to do if it metaphorically expresses how we feel. When my good friend Alan Paskow died on Tuesday, I latched on to the fact that the day began with a tornado alert and that we were lashed by slashing rain for much of the morning.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged death and dying, elegy, Lost Children, Mary Oliver, Percy Shelley | Comments closed

Dancing to a Bright Star

By Robin Bates | Published: April 30, 2010

Film Friday As this is Friday, I begin with a discussion of a film. But as it is also the tenth anniversary of the drowning death of my 21-year-old son Justin, I plan to digress. I trust you will allow me to embark on a bit of a ramble. The film I have chosen is […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Bright Star", "Ode to the West Wind", death and dying, death of a child, Jane Campion, John Keats, Percy Shelley | Comments closed