, especially his household pets, was most
sincere. Despite the playful irony of his poem, there is in the minor
key an undertone of genuine sorrow. "We have just lost our dear, dear
mongrel, Kaiser," he wrote in a letter dated from his home in Cobham,
Kent, April 7, 1887, "and we are very sad." The poem was written the
following July, and was published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for that
month.

=2. Cobham.= See note above.

=3. Farringford,= in the Isle of Wight, was the home of Lord Tennyson.

=5. Pen-bryn's bold bard.= Sir Lewis Morris, author of the _Epic of
Hades_, lived at Pen-bryn, in Caermarthanshire.
[188]
=11-12.= In Burns's poem, _Poor Mailie's Elegy_, occur the following
lines:--

"Come, join the melancholious croon
O' Robin's reed."

=20. Potsdam.= The capital of the government district of Potsdam, in
the province of Brandenburg, Prussia; hence the dog's name, _Kaiser_.

=41. the Grand Old Man.= Gladstone.

=50. agog.= In a state of eager excitement.

=65. Geist.= Also remembered in a poem entitled _Geist's Grave_,
included in this volume.

=76. chiel.= A Scotch word meaning lad, fellow.

"Buirdly _chiels_ an clever hizzies."
--BURNS, _The Twa Dogs_.

=Skye.= The largest of the Inner Hebrides. See note, l. 7, _Saint
Brandan_.

THE LAST WORD

In this poem Arnold describes the plight of one engaged in a hopeless
struggle against an uncompromising, Philistine world too strong for
him.

State the central thought in the poem. To whom is it addressed? What
is the _narrow bed_, l. 1? Why give up the struggle? With whom has it
been waged? Explain fully l. 4. What is implied in l. 6? What is meant
by _ringing shot_, l. 11? Who are the victors, l. 14? What would they
probably say on finding the body near the wall? Can you think of any
historical characters of whom the poem might aptly have been written?

[189]
PALLADIUM

At the time of the Trojan war there was in the citadel of Troy a
celebrated statue of Pallas Athene, called the Palladium. It was
reputed to have fallen from heaven as the gift of Zeus, and the belief
was that the city could not be taken so long as this statue remained
within it. Ulysses and Diomedes, two of the Greek champions, succeeded
in entering the city in disguise, s