[957.] Note the impressive effect of the five-foot line ending the scene.
The shepherds have their dance in rustic fashion. The words describing this dance are the familiar peasant words, [jig, duck, nod]. The playful tone in which the spirit calls upon the swains to give place to their betters is charming.
[964. With the mincing Dryades.] “The Dryades were nymphs of woods and trees, dwelling in groves, ravines, and wooded valleys, and were fond of making merry with Apollo, Mercury, and Pan.”
[980. I suck the liquid air:] I inhale the upper air,—the æther liquidus of the poets. So Ariel, Tempest V 1 102, “I drink the air before me.”
[981. the gardens fair Of Hesperus and his daughters three.] The number of the Hesperides and their parentage are differently given in various legends. The story of their garden in some mysterious place in the far west, where they guarded the tree that bore the golden apples, assisted by the dragon Ladon, is one of the best known in the classic mythology.
[984. Along the crisped shades and bowers.] Milton applies crisped to brooks, Par. Lost IV 237. Herrick has,—“the crisped yew,” and the American Thoreau,—“A million crisped waves.”
[985. spruce.] A very interesting account of the origin of this word is given by Skeat in his Etymological Dictionary.
[986. The Graces and the rosy-bosomed Hours.] See [note on L’Allegro 15]. “The Graces were guardians of the vernal sweetness and beauty of nature, friends and protectors of everything graceful and beautiful.” The Hours were goddesses of the seasons, daughters of Zeus and Themis. They were the door-keepers of Olympus, whose cloud-gate they open and shut: thus they preside over the weather.
[990. About the cedarn alleys:] about the pathways through cedar groves. Coleridge, in Kubla Khan, has the line, “Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover”; and Tennyson, Geraint and Enid, the line,—“And moving toward a cedarn cabinet.” So also William Barnes, in his Rural Poems, uses the expression, “stonen jugs.”
[992. Iris] is the messenger of the gods: her path is the rainbow.