JOLLY DAYS

The Matrix of Grief

I once read a story about Mick Jagger reading a poem by Shelley at an open-air concert. The poem Jagger read to the crowd was Adonais, an elegy written by Shelley for his friend, the poet John Keats. Jagger dedicated Shelley's elegy to his drummer Brian Jones, who had drowned:

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…

Jagger then startled the crowd by releasing thousands of shimmering butterflies.

Shelley drowned in a storm at sea in 1822, at the age of 29.

[based on a story told by Richard Holmes in the NYRB]