[21.] the huge world. London.
[24.] Was breathed on by rural Pan. Note Arnold's classic way of accounting for his great love for nature, Pan being the nature god. See note, l. [67], The Strayed Reveller.
[37-42.] Compare the thought here presented with the [p.179] following lines from Wordsworth:—
"These beauteous forms,
... have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye.
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
... sensations sweet
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration."
Read also Wordsworth's Lines to the Daffodil.
What is the dominant mood of the poem? What evidently brought it to the author's mind? How does he show his interest in nature? In human beings? What inspiration does the author seek from nature, ll. 37-42? Explain the meaning of the last two lines.
[THE STRAYED REVELLER][°]
"I have such a love for these forms and this old Greek world, that perhaps I infuse a little soul into my dealings with them, which saves me from being entirely ennuyx, professorial and pedantic." (Matthew Arnold, in a letter to his sister, dated February, 1858.)
[Circe], according to Greek mythology, was an enchantress, who dwelt in the island of Ææa, and who possessed the power to transform men into beasts. (See any mythological text on Ulysses' wanderings.) In Arnold's fantastic, visionary poem, the magic potion, by which this transformation is accomplished, affects not the body, but the mind of the youth.
[12.] ivy-cinctured. That is, girdled with ivy, symbolic of Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry, whose forehead was crowned [p.180] with ivy. See also l. 33.