Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 289-297
His head was bound with pansies overblown,
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue;
And a light spear topp'd with a cypress cone,
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew
Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew,
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart
Shook the weak hand that grasp'd it; of that crew
He came the last, neglected and apart;
A herd-abandon'd deer struck by the hunter's dart.
- The speaker is still describing the mysterious, lonely man. He has a crown of flowers and a spear topped with a cypress cone. This is a reference to Dionysus, Greek god of pleasure and partying. Is this the mysterious man?
- Maybe—or maybe not.
- "Of that crew he came the last" would indicate that he's merely a follower of Dionysus, one that doesn't quite fit in with the rest. After all, Shelley does call him "herd-abandoned."
- Let's read on for more clues…