Thyrsis is the title of a poem written by Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator...

 in December 1865 to commemorate his friend, the poet Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough

Arthur Hugh Clough was an English poet, an educationalist, and the devoted assistant to ground-breaking nurse Florence Nightingale...

, who had died in November 1861 aged only 42.

The character, Thyrsis, was a shepherd in Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

's Seventh Eclogue, who lost a singing match against Corydon

Corydon (character)

Corydon is a stock name for a shepherd in ancient Greek pastoral poems and fables, such as the one in Idyll 4 of the Syracusan poet Theocritus . The name was also used by the Latin poets Siculus and, more significantly, Virgil...

. The implication that Clough was a loser is hardly fair, given that he is thought by many to have been one of the greatest Nineteenth Century poets.

Arnold's decision to imitate a Latin pastoral is ironic in that Clough was best known for The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich

The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich

The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich, subtitled A Long-Vacation Pastoral is a lengthy narrative poem by the Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough, which was critically well-received at the time. The work was written in the summer of 1848....

, subtitled 'a long-vacation pastoral': a thoroughly modern poem which broke all the rules of classical pastoral poetry.

Arnold's poem is remembered above all for its lines describing the view of Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

 from Boars Hill

Boars Hill

Boars Hill is a hill hamlet southwest of Oxford, straddling the boundariy between the civil parishes of Sunningwell and Wootton. It was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred it to Oxfordshire.-History:...

: "And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,/ She needs not June for beauty's heightening". Portions of it also appear in An Oxford Elegy

An Oxford Elegy

An Oxford Elegy is a work for narrator, small mixed chorus and small orchestra, written by Ralph Vaughan Williams between 1947 and 1949. It uses portions of two poems by Matthew Arnold, The Scholar Gipsy and Thyrsis...

by Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

.