[212.] inviolable shade. Holy, sacred, not susceptible to corruption. Perhaps no other of Arnold's lines is so much quoted as this and the preceding line.
[214]. Why "silver'd" branches?
[220.] dingles. Wooded dells.
[231-250]. Note the force of this elaborate and exquisitely sustained image; how the mind is carried back from these turbid days of sick unrest to the clear dawn of a fresh and healthy civilization. In the course of an essay on Arnold, the late Mr. Richard Holt Hutton says of this poem and this closing picture: "That most beautiful and graceful poem on the Scholar-Gipsy (the Oxford student who is said to have forsaken academic study in order to learn, if it might be, those potent secrets of nature, the traditions of which the gypsies are supposed sedulously to guard) ends in a digression of the most vivid beauty.... Nothing could illustrate better than this [closing] passage Arnold's genius and his art.... His whole drift having been that care and effort and gain and pressure of the world are sapping human strength, he ends with a picture of the old-world pride and daring, which exhibits human strength in its freshness and vigor.... I could quote poem after poem which Arnold closes by some such buoyant digression: a buoyant digression intended to shake off the tone of melancholy, and to remind us that the world of imaginative life is still wide open to us.... This problem is insoluble, he seems to say, but insoluble or not, let us recall the pristine force of the[p.202] human spirit, and not forget that we have access to great resources still.... Arnold, exquisite as his poetry is, teaches us first to feel, and then to put by, the cloud of mortal destiny. But he does not teach us, as Wordsworth does, to bear it."
[232.] As some grave Tyrian trader, etc. Tyre, the second oldest and most important city of Phoenicia, was, in ancient times, a strong competitor for the commercial supremacy of the Mediterranean.
[236.] Ægean Isles. The Ægean Sea, that part of the Mediterranean lying between Greece on the west, European Turkey on the north, and Asia Minor on the east, is dotted with numerous small islands, many of which are famous in Greek mythology.
[238.] Chian wine. Chios, or Scio, an island in the Ægean Sea (see note above), was formerly celebrated for its wine and figs.
[239.] tunnies. A fish belonging to the mackerel family; found in the Mediterranean Sea.
[244.] Midland waters. The Mediterranean Sea.
[245.] Syrtes. The ancient name of Gulf of Sidra, off North Africa, the chief arm of the Mediterranean on the south, soft Sicily. Sicily is noted for its delightful climate; hence the term, "soft Sicily."