POEMS OLD AND NEW
" In Xamdiu did Gublai Can build a stately Palace,
encompassing sixteene miles of plaine ground with a
wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs,
delightfull Streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase
and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous
house of pleasure."
P. in, 1. 5. Xanadu : Shandu.
Kubla Khan (1216-1294) : founder of the Mongol
dynasty in China. He built Pekin as his capital.
P. 112, 1. 13. Abora : Abba Yared, a mountain in Abys-
sinia.
The Parrot.
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) was born in Glasgow
and educated there and in Edinburgh. After travel-
ling on the Continent, he settled in London and took
up literary work. His long poems, " The Pleasures
of Hope," " Gertrude of Wyoming " and " Theodric,"
have lost their popularity, which his shorter poems, by
their energy and occasional felicity of phrase and
rhythm, have retained.
P. 112, 1. 27. The Spanish main : the northern mainland
of South America, especially that part bordering the
Caribbean Sea.
1.30. Mullah: the island of Mull.
To Might.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was educated at
Eton and Oxford. He early adopted the rationalist
ideas of William Godwin, whose daughter he afterwards
married. With her he settled in Italy near to his
friend Byron. On the death of Keats he wrote the
elegy "Adonais." Like Keats, he died prematurely,
being drowned while sailing in the Gulf of Spezzia.
Shelley and Keats are both buried in the Protestant
Cemetery in Rome.
Matthew Arnold said of Shelley that his proper sphere
was not poetry but music. Certainly the superb rhythm
and caoence of his verse are in essence musical, but
when, as in " The Cenci," he set himself to treat a con-
crete theme his work is as thoughtful as such lyrics as
" The Skylark" and the " Ode to the West Wind"
are musical. Shelley's early death deprived England
of one of the finest, if not the finest, of her lyric poets.
The Human Seasons.
P. 115, 1. 25. Ruminate : to chew the cud.
2OO