Thyrsis: A Monody, to Commemorate the Author's Friend, Arthur Hugh Clough

In the subtitle, Arnold refers to the poem as a “monody,” which is a poem that laments a person’s death. Within the classical pastoral framework, in which Arnold presents himself as the shepherd Corydon and his friend Arthur Hugh Clough as the shepherd Thyrsis, the poem revolves around the loss of youthful ideals, symbolized by the elm tree, the Gipsy Scholar, and the attempt to recapture them. The poem begins as the poet returns to his much-loved former haunts in the Oxfordshire countryside after many years’ absence. He finds immediately that little has stayed the same—“How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!” (Line 1)—which announces the theme not only of change but also of nostalgia and loss. The classical framework is interspersed with lush, naturalistic descriptions of the countryside in spring and winter. In Stanza 3, for example, he describes the area, naming specific places, such as Childsworth Farm, the Isley Downs, and the river Thames, thus grounding the poem in a real place despite its mythological trappings. The description in this stanza of the warm winter evening is typical of how the speaker evokes nature in other parts of the poem: “Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, / The tender purple spray on copse and briers!” (Lines 17-18).