Elfin land: and other poems — Story, Setting & Ideas

The Dream and the Real

The opening dedication introduces a central tension: the beloved is first encountered as a "phantom" in a dream, then later recognized in the flesh. The speaker describes himself as "of shade impalpable the lover," a phrase that captures the collection's preoccupation with the boundary between imagination and actuality. In the title poem, this motif recurs when the narrator mistakes a "gorgeous bird" for something more—only to have his error "soon become apparent." The bird, named Cymindis, sings a "lengthened flow of moist Memnonian melody" before being killed by a vulture, a sudden shriek that breaks the rapture. Ball repeatedly stages moments where a vision or sound is interrupted, suggesting that the ideal cannot be sustained.

Music, Birds, and Silence

Birds function as both symbols and structural devices across the collection. In the excerpt from "Cymindis," the bird's song is described in elaborate musical terms: a "flute's low silvery plaining," a "shepherd's reed," a "far-off clarion's exclaiming," and finally an "Æolian harmony." This layering of sound creates a sense of plenitude, yet the narrative arc moves from song to silence—the vulture's attack "hushed to silence" the descant. Similarly, in "The Cemetery in Summer," the speaker hears only a "low eternal threne" woven by the wind, and the "din of life" becomes a "murmur." The contrast between vibrant music and quiet death is a recurring pattern.

Classical and Gothic Echoes

Ball's verse is steeped in classical and literary references. The dedication invokes "that sweet Göthéan vision" from Faust, while "Pan and Laïs" and "Achilles' Song" draw directly on myth. The poem "The Authoress of the Mysteries of Udolpho" signals an interest in Gothic romance, and "The Lay of the Condemned Spirit in Dante" adapts a scene from the Inferno. Yet these allusions are often undercut by a melancholic tone: in "The Cemetery in Summer," the figure of Eros appears "with torch reversed and falling tear," a conventional emblem of mourning. The classical world is not revived but elegized, and the Gothic elements—like the "spectres thin" in the cemetery—are subdued, more atmospheric than horrific.

Readers approaching Elfin Land will find a poet who moves fluidly between personal lyric and mythological narrative, but who consistently returns to themes of transience and loss. The collection rewards attention to its sound patterns—the way birdsong, wind, and human voice echo and fall silent. Ball's classical learning is worn lightly, and his most effective poems are those where the ideal and the actual collide, leaving the speaker in a state of suspended longing.

Some books don’t leave when you close them. Elfin land stayed with me that way—its quiet ache about love and time, wrapped in moonlight and birdsong. It reminded me of another voice that lingers similarly, tender and unhurried, in Poems of love — A Reader’s Guide. There’s a softness there, like remembering someone you once held gently.