Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/537

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
NOTES
519


MACDONALD S RAID 1780 (PAGE 402)

Macdonald was one of General Marion s men, who led four compan ions into the fortified post of Georgetown, South Carolina, held by three hundred of the British soldiers and brought out his men unharmed. Ben Lomond: a mountain of central Scotland. Arab: Arabian horse. dolce: idleness. Brobdingnag: the land of giants visited by Gulliver.

QUESTIONS, i. Who relates the incident? 2. What details of it are

given?

THE PINE S MYSTERY (PAGE 405)

Hayne had a peculiar fondness for the pine. He made it the subject not only of the two poems herein given, but of several other poems, all of them in his happiest vein. Gitana: a gypsy dancer.

QUESTION. Has the poet given a good description of the pine s

mournful tone?

THE WILL AND THE WING (PAGE 405)

Tantalus: in Grecian mythology a Phrygian king who was punished in the lower world by being placed in the midst of a lake whose waters reached to his chin but receded whenever he sought to allay his thirst, while over his head hung branches laden with fruit which likewise receded whenever he stretched out his -hand to grasp them.

QUESTION. What conception of his art does the poet give?


THE AXE AND PINE (PAGE 407)

Dryads: in classical mythology, spirits who inhabited trees.

QUESTIONS, i. What is the poet lamenting? 2. Explain the last

four lines.

MIDSUMMER IN THE SOUTH (PAGE 407)

Hesperides: in mythology the sisters who guarded the golden apples of the sunset.

QUESTIONS, i. What aspects of midsummer are brought out?

2. Which of these is treated with the greatest poetic ability?