89-100. These lines, and the opening lines of the poem are among the best of Tennyson's blank verse lines, and therefore among the best that English poetry contains. The description owes some of its beauty to Homer. In its earlier form, in the volume of 1832-3, it is much less perfect.
132. A CRESTED PEACOCK. The peacock was sacred to Herè (Juno).
103. A GOLDEN CLOUD. The gods were wont to recline upon Olympus beneath a canopy of golden clouds.
104. DROPPING FRAGRANT DEW. Drops of glittering dew fell from the golden cloud which shrouded Herè and Zeus. See Iliad, XIV, 341 f.
105 f. Herè was the queen of Heaven. Power was therefore the gift which she naturally proffered.
114. Supply the ellipsis.
121-122. POWER FITTED—WISDOM. Power that adapts itself to every crisis; power which is born of wisdom and enthroned by wisdom (i.e. does not owe its supremacy to brute strength).
121-122. FROM ALL-ALLEGIANCE. Note the ellipsis and the inversion.
128-131. WHO HAVE ATTAINED—SUPREMACY. Cf. Lotos Eaters, l. 155 f, and Lucretius, 104-108.
The gods, who haunt
The lucid interspace of world and world
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans.