=51-60. So ... So....= Just as the cuckoo departs with the bloom of
the year, so he (Clough) went, l. 48. =With blossoms red and white=
(l. 55). The white thorn, or hawthorn, very common in English gardens.

=62. high Midsummer pomps=. Explained in the following lines.

=71. light comer=. That is, the cuckoo. Compare

"O blithe New-comer."
--WORDSWORTH, _Lines to the Cuckoo_.

=77. swains=. Consult dictionary.

=78. reed=. See note, l. 35 of poem.

=79. And blow a strain the world at last shall heed=. On the whole,
Clough's poetry was either ignored or harshly criticised by the
reviewers.

=80. Corydon=. In the Idyls of Theocritus, Corydon and Thyrsis,
shepherd swains, compete for a prize in music.

=84. Piping a ditty sad for Bion's fate=. Bion of Smyrna, Asia Minor,
a celebrated bucolic poet of the second century B.C., spent the later
years of his life in Sicily, where it is supposed he was poisoned.
His untimely death was lamented by his follower and pupil, Moschus of
Syracuse, in an idyl marked by melody and genuine pathos. =ditty=.
In a general sense, any song; usually confined, however, to a song
narrating some heroic deed. [207]

=85. cross the unpermitted ferry's flow=. That is, cross the river
of Woe, over which Charon ferried the shades of the dead to Hades.
Mythology records several instances, however, of the ferry being
passed by mortals. See note, ll. 34-39, _Memorial Verses_; also ll.
207-210, _The Scholar-Gipsy_, of this volume.

=88-89. Proserpine=, wife to Pluto (l. 86) and queen of the
underworld, was anciently honored, with flower festivals in Sicily, as
the goddess of the spring.

=90. And flute his friend like Orpheus=, etc. See note, ll. 34-39,
_Memorial Verses_.

=94. She knew the Dorian water's gush divine=. The river Alpheus,
in the northwestern part of the Peloponnesus--the country of the
Dorians--disappears from the surface and flows in subterranean
channels for some considerable part of its course to the sea. In
ancient Greek mythology it was reputed to rise again to the surface in
central Sicily, in the vale of Enna, the favorite haunt of Proserpine,
as the fountain of Arethusa.

=95-96. She knew each lily white which Enna yields=, etc. According to
Greek mythology, Proserpine was gathering flowers in the vale of Enna
when carried off by Pluto.

=97. She loved the Dorian pipe=, etc. What reason or reasons can