The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
To
The Rev. Dr. Wordsworth
(With The Sonnets To The River Duddon, And Other Poems In This Collection, 1820)


          THE Minstrels played their Christmas tune
          To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;
          While, smitten by a lofty moon,
          The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
          Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
          That overpowered their natural green.

          Through hill and valley every breeze
          Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
          Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
          Nor check, the music of the strings;                        10
          So stout and hardy were the band
          That scraped the chords with strenuous hand;

          And who but listened?--till was paid
          Respect to every Inmate's claim:
          The greeting given, the music played,
          In honour of each household name,
          Duly pronounced with lusty call,
          And "merry Christmas" wished to all!

          O Brother! I revere the choice
          That took thee from thy native hills;                       20
          And it is given thee to rejoice:
          Though public care full often tills
          (Heaven only witness of the toil)
          A barren and ungrateful soil.

          Yet, would that Thou, with me and mine,
          Hadst heard this never-failing rite;
          And seen on other faces shine
          A true revival of the light
          Which Nature and these rustic Powers,
          In simple childhood, spread through ours.                   30

          For pleasure hath not ceased to wait
          On these expected annual rounds;
          Whether the rich man's sumptuous gate
          Call forth the unelaborate sounds,
          Or they are offered at the door
          That guards the lowliest of the poor.

          How touching, when, at midnight, sweep
          Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark,
          To hear--and sink again to sleep!
          Or, at an earlier call, to mark,                            40
          By blazing fire, the still suspense
          Of self-complacent innocence;

          The mutual nod,--the grave disguise
          Of hearts with gladness brimming o'er;
          And some unbidden tears that rise
          For names once heard, and heard no more;
          Tears brightened by the serenade
          For infant in the cradle laid.

          Ah! not for emerald fields alone,
          With ambient streams more pure and bright                   50
          Than fabled Cytherea's zone
          Glittering before the Thunderer's sight,
          Is to my heart of hearts endeared
          The ground where we were born and reared!

          Hail, ancient Manners! sure defence,
          Where they survive, of wholesome laws;
          Remnants of love whose modest sense
          Thus into narrow room withdraws;
          Hail, Usages of pristine mould,
          And ye that guard them, Mountains old!                      60

          Bear with me, Brother! quench the thought
          That slights this passion, or condemns;
          If thee fond Fancy ever brought
          From the proud margin of the Thames,
          And Lambeth's venerable towers,
          To humbler streams, and greener bowers.

          Yes, they can make, who fail to find,
          Short leisure even in busiest days;
          Moments, to cast a look behind,
          And profit by those kindly rays                             70
          That through the clouds do sometimes steal,
          And all the far-off past reveal.

          Hence, while the imperial City's din
          Beats frequent on thy satiate ear,
          A pleased attention I may win
          To agitations less severe,
          That neither overwhelm nor cloy,
          But fill the hollow vale with joy!

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
I

          NOT envying Latian shades--if yet they throw
          A grateful coolness round that crystal Spring,
          Blandusia, prattling as when long ago
          The Sabine Bard was moved her praise to sing;
          Careless of flowers that in perennial blow
          Round the moist marge of Persian fountains cling;
          Heedless of Alpine torrents thundering
          Through ice-built arches radiant as heaven's bow;
          I seek the birthplace of a native Stream.--
          All hail, ye mountains! hail, thou morning light!           10
          Better to breathe at large on this clear height
          Than toil in needless sleep from dream to dream:
          Pure flow the verse, pure, vigorous, free, and bright,
          For Duddon, long-loved Duddon, is my theme!

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
II


          CHILD of the clouds! remote from every taint
          Of sordid industry thy lot is cast;
          Thine are the honours of the lofty waste
          Not seldom, when with heat the valleys faint,
          Thy handmaid Frost with spangled tissue quaint
          Thy cradle decks;--to chant thy birth, thou hast
          No meaner Poet than the whistling Blast,
          And Desolation is thy Patron-saint!
          She guards thee, ruthless Power! who would not spare
          Those mighty forests, once the bison's screen,              10
          Where stalked the huge deer to his shaggy lair
          Through paths and alleys roofed with darkest green;
          Thousands of years before the silent air
          Was pierced by whizzing shaft of hunter keen!

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
III


 How shall I paint thee?--Be this naked stone
          My seat, while I give way to such intent;
          Pleased could my verse, a speaking monument,
          Make to the eyes of men thy features known.
          But as of all those tripping lambs not one
          Outruns his fellows, so hath Nature lent
          To thy beginning nought that doth present
          Peculiar ground for hope to build upon.
          To dignify the spot that gives thee birth,
          No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem                          10
          Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care;
          Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a gleam
          Of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare;
          Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth!

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
IV


          TAKE, cradled Nursling of the mountain, take
          This parting glance, no negligent adieu!
          A Protean change seems wrought while I pursue
          The curves, a loosely-scattered chain doth make;
          Or rather thou appear'st a glistering snake,
          Silent, and to the gazer's eye untrue,
          Thridding with sinuous lapse the rushes, through
          Dwarf willows gliding, and by ferny brake.
          Starts from a dizzy steep the undaunted Rill
          Robed instantly in garb of snow-white foam;                 10
          And laughing dares the Adventurer, who hath clomb
          So high, a rival purpose to fulfil;
          Else let the dastard backward wend, and roam,
          Seeking less bold achievement, where he will!

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
V


          SOLE listener, Duddon! to the breeze that played
          With thy clear voice, I caught the fitful sound
          Wafted o'er sullen moss and craggy mound--
          Unfruitful solitudes, that seemed to upbraid
          The sun in heaven!--but now, to form a shade
          For Thee, green alders have together wound
          Their foliage; ashes flung their arms around;
          And birch-trees risen in silver colonnade.
          And thou hast also tempted here to rise,
          'Mid sheltering pines, this Cottage rude and grey;          10
          Whose ruddy children, by the mother's eyes
          Carelessly watched, sport through the summer day,
          Thy pleased associates:--light as endless May
          On infant bosoms lonely Nature lies.

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
VI. Flowers


          ERE yet our course was graced with social trees
          It lacked not old remains of hawthorn bowers,
          Where small birds warbled to their paramours;
          And, earlier still, was heard the hum of bees;
          I saw them ply their harmless robberies,
          And caught the fragrance which the sundry flowers,
          Fed by the stream with soft perpetual showers,
          Plenteously yielded to the vagrant breeze.
          There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness;
          The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue,           10
          The thyme her purple, like the blush of Even;
          And if the breath of some to no caress
          Invited, forth they peeped so fair to view,
          All kinds alike seemed favourites of Heaven

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
VII


          "CHANGE me, some God, into that breathing rose!"
          The love-sick Stripling fancifully sighs,
          The envied flower beholding, as it lies
          On Laura's breast, in exquisite repose;
          Or he would pass into her bird, that throws
          The darts of song from out its wiry cage;
          Enraptured,--could he for himself engage
          The thousandth part of what the Nymph bestows;
          And what the little careless innocent
          Ungraciously receives. Too daring choice!                   10
          There are whose calmer mind it would content
          To be an unculled floweret of the glen,
          Fearless of plough and scythe; or darkling wren
          That tunes on Duddon's banks her slender voice.

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
VIII


         WHAT aspect bore the Man who roved or fled,
          First of his tribe, to this dark dell--who first
          In this pellucid Current slaked his thirst?
          What hopes came with him? what designs were spread
          Along his path? His unprotected bed
          What dreams encompassed? Was the intruder nursed
          In hideous usages, and rites accursed,
          That thinned the living and disturbed the dead?
          No voice replies;--both air and earth are mute;
          And Thou, blue Streamlet, murmuring yield'st no more        10
          Than a soft record, that, whatever fruit
          Of ignorance thou might'st witness heretofore,
          Thy function was to heal and to restore,
          To soothe and cleanse, not madden and pollute!

The River Duddon
A Series Of Sonnets, 1820.
IX. The Stepping-Stones


          THE struggling Rill insensibly is grown
          Into a Brook of loud and stately march,
          Crossed ever and anon by plank or arch;
          And, for like use, lo! what might seem a zone
          Chosen for ornament--stone matched with stone
          In studied symmetry, with interspace
          For the clear waters to pursue their race
          Without restraint. How swiftly have they flown,
          Succeeding--still succeeding! Here the Child
          Puts, when the high-swoln Flood runs fierce and wild,       10
          His budding courage to the proof; and here
          Declining Manhood learns to note the sly
          And sure encroachments of infirmity,
          Thinking how fast time runs, life's end how near!