[158]. monstrous world: the world of sea-monsters.
[159]. moist: tearful.
[160]. the fable of Bellerus old: i.e. the scene of the fable.
[161-163]. Where the great Vision: see [Introductory Remarks].
[164]. O ye dolphins: an allusion to the story of Arion.
[166]. your sorrow: used objectively, he who is the object of your sorrow. 'Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead.'—Shelley's Adonais.
[167]. watery floor: what is called the level brine, [v. 98]; 'the shining levels of the lake.'—Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur, suggested, no doubt, by the classical æquora.
[169-171]. repairs his drooping head: Milton, in these lines, compares great things with small (parvis componit magna); if they are 'considered curiously,' the sun makes his toilet on rising from his ocean bed!
[172]. sunk . . . mounted: any one reading this verse for the first time would be likely to get the impression that these words are participles; this would not be the case if 'sunk' were 'sank,' originally the distinctive singular form of the preterite, 'sunk' being plural; AS. sanc, suncon.
[173]. Him that walked the waves: a beautiful designation of the Saviour, in accord with the occasion of the poem; and so St. Peter is designated as 'the Pilot of the Galilean Lake.'