The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls Memory and the Past Quotes

The past is first brought up in the poem in the reference to the "castle," which immediately evokes images of fairy tales and medieval history. The second line, which says that the mountains are "old in story," emphasizes and confirms the idea of old tales and legends brought up in the first line.

The first time we hear the bugle horn in the valley, the echoes seem to be just literal echoes off of the cliff face. But something about hearing the echoes fading and "dying" away seems to make the speaker think about fairy tales again…

The speaker imagines that the bugle is actually coming from "Elfland," which is another name for the fairy land of ancient Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology (like in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings).