ABSTRACT
The poem was probably begun in Aug. 1902: what looks like a first draft is on the same piece of paper used for ‘In the Seven Woods’, which was dated in print by WBY as Aug. The arrow shot by a naked figure into the night sky had been a potent private symbol for WBY since his ‘vision of the archer’ episode at Tillyra in Aug. 1896. The use of feminine rhymes throughout – highly unusual for WBY – is not without some awkwardness of effect. The poem has generated little commentary, but E. Cullingford noted how it ‘radically transforms the poetic cliché of the lover transfixed by Cupid's dart: the ‘arrow’ of the title, made out of a ‘wild’ thought, seems to be the woman's weapon rather than the stock property of the love poet’. The same sheet, turned upside down, is used for an early draft of ‘In the Seven Woods’.
