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

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1865

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Shepherd’s Pipes

In pastoral poetry, shepherds are a symbol of the innocence and simplicity of rural life and are often juxtaposed with the complexity and corruption of life in the city (a contrast that can be found in the poem). The narrator looks back on the youthful days he and Thyrsis spent in the countryside as an ideal, uncomplicated way of living “with the shepherds and the silly sheep” (Line 45). (“Silly” in this context means innocent.) There “our shepherd’s pipes we first assayed” (Line 35). The shepherd playing his pipes is a symbol for writing poetry. The narrator is therefore stating that this was the time when both he and Thyrsis began their work as poets. When he states that “My pipe is lost” (Line 37), he means that he has lost the ability to write poems. The shepherd’s pipe is also referred to as a “reed” (Line 78) and a “flute” (Line 221).

Scholar Gipsy

The Scholar Gipsy symbolizes the never-ending search for truth, wisdom, and a kind of enlightenment. In their youth, the narrator and Thyrsis linked his presence to that of the elm tree. They agreed that as long as the tree existed so would the Scholar Gipsy. The scholar has thus attained a kind of immortality. He is presented in this poem as a wanderer through the English countryside. The knowledge he seeks is perhaps of an esoteric sort and not available to the masses of men and women. After all, it is a “fugitive light” (Line 201) he pursues, meaning it is quick to disappear. It hides away and is “shy to illumine” (Line 202). In other words, this light, and the knowledge it embodies, must be earnestly sought and may not give up its wisdom easily; the seeker must be determined and not lose heart. As Stanza 21 makes clear, the secret is not open to those whose only interest is worldly success and gain. It is not something that can be bought and sold, suggesting perhaps that it is not in books—even all the books in the library at Oxford—and yet it is not an illusion; it can be found and known and possessed. The poem does seem to suggest, however, that the joy is as much in the pursuit of this esoteric knowledge as the acquisition of it. Even the Scholar Gipsy, who found the secret knowledge, still went on searching, and in “Thyrsis,” he searches still because the quest is never complete. There is always more to know.

The Tree

Along with the Scholar Gipsy, the elm tree is the central symbol of the poem. For the speaker and Thyrsis, it symbolizes the search for truth and knowledge that at one time was the great inspiration of their lives. The tree sits on top of a hill or ridge. In its lofty eminence; it appears as “[t]hat lonely tree against the Western sky” (Line 195) and the “lone, sky-pointing tree” (Line 174). In other words, it stands out strongly against the rest of the natural environment. Existing alone and reaching up toward the sky, it makes a potent symbol for how men and women must reach for a truth that is above or different from the ordinary run of things.

Lying behind the specific meaning the elm tree has in the poem is the universal symbolism of trees. Trees often carry symbolic meaning in the religions and mythologies of the world. A tree has its roots in the earth, but its branches reach toward the sky, so in that sense the tree is a link between heaven and earth; it represents the totality or essential nature of life, including all opposites, such as darkness and light.