221. This may not appear as exact as Sappho’s lines, but I had
in mind the “longshore” or “dory” fisherman, who returns at
nightfall.
253. V. Goldsmith, the song in _The Vicar of Wakefield_.
257. V. _The Tempest_, as above.
264. The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of
the finest among Wren’s interiors. See _The Proposed Demolition
of Nineteen City Churches_ (P. S. King & Son, Ltd.).
266. The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here.
From line 292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn.
V. _Götterdämmerung_, III. i: the Rhine-daughters.
279. V. Froude, _Elizabeth_, Vol. I, ch. iv, letter of De
Quadra to Philip of Spain:
“In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the
river. (The queen) was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the
poop, when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord
Robert at last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why
they should not be married if the queen pleased.”
293. Cf. _Purgatorio_, v. 133:
“Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
Siena mi fe’, disfecemi Maremma.”
307. V. St. Augustine’s _Confessions_: “to Carthage then I
came, where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears.”
308. The complete text of the Buddha’s Fire Sermon (which
corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which
these words are taken, will be found translated in the late Henry
Clarke Warren’s _Buddhism in Translation_ (Harvard Oriental
Series). Mr. Warren was one of the great pioneers of Buddhist
studies in the Occident.
309. From St. Augustine’s _Confessions_ again. The collocation
of these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism,
as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident.
V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAID
In the first part of Part V three themes are employed:
the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous
(see Miss Weston’s book) and the present decay of eastern Europe.
357. This is _Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii_, the hermit-thrush
which I have heard in Quebec County. Chapman says (_Handbook of
Birds of Eastern North America_) “it is most at home in secluded
woodland and thickety retreats. . . . Its notes are not
remarkable for variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of
tone and exquisite modulation they are unequalled.” Its
“water-dripping song” is justly celebrated.
360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of one
of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one
of Shackleton’s): it was related that the party of explorers,
at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion
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