To the River Duddon.

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; 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.

WORDSWORTH.

The Avon.

(A Feeder of the Annan.)

AVON-a precious, an immortal name!

Yet is it one that other rivulets bear
Like this unheard-of, and their channels wear
Like this contented, though unknown to Fame :
For great and sacred is the modest claim
Of Streams to Nature's love, where'er they flow:
And ne'er did Genius slight them, as they go,

Tree, flower, and green herb, feeding without blame.
But Praise can waste her voice on work of tears,
Anguish and death: full oft where innocent blood
Has mixed its current with the limpid flood,
Her heaven-offending trophies Glory rears:
Never for like distinction may the good

Shrink from thy name, pure Rill, with unpleased ears.

WORDSWORTH.

Sonnet.

BROOK! whose society the Poet seeks,

Intent his wasted spirits to renew :

And whom the curious Painter doth pursue
Through rocky passes, among flowery creeks,
And tracks thee dancing down thy water-breaks;
If wish were mine some type of thee to view,
Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do
Like Grecian Artists, give thee human cheeks,
Channels for tears; no Naiad shouldst thou be,—
Have neither limbs, feet, feathers, joints, nor hairs:
It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood,
And hath bestowed on thee a safer good;
Unwearied joy, and life without its cares.

WORDSWORTH.

[From On Revisiting a Scottish River.]

AND call they this Improvement?—to have changed,

My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore,
Where Nature's face is banish'd and estranged,

And Heaven reflected in thy wave no more;
Whose banks, that sweeten'd May-day's breath before,
Lie sere and leafless now in summer's beam,
With sooty exhalations cover'd o'er ;

And for the daisied green-sward, down thy stream,
Unsightly brick-lanes smoke, and clanking engines gleam...

God has not given

This passion to the heart of man in vain,

For Earth's green face, th' untainted air of Heaven,
And all the bliss of Nature's rustic reign.

For not alone our frame imbibes a stain

From fetid skies; the spirit's healthy pride,

Fades in their gloom-And therefore I complain,

That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst glide, My Wallace's own stream, and once romantic Clyde !

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

[From Rokeby, Canto i.]

WHERE Orinoco, in his pride,

Rolls to the main no tribute tide,
But 'gainst broad ocean urges far
A rival sea of roaring war;

While, in ten thousand eddies driven,
The billows fling their foam to heaven,
And the pale pilot seeks in vain,
Where rolls the river, where the main.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

[From Rokeby, Canto ii.] TEES, full many a fathom low,

Wears with his rage no common foe;
For pebbly bank, nor sand-bed here,
Nor clay-mound, checks his fierce career,
Condemn'd to mine a channell'd way,
O'er solid sheets of marble grey.

Nor Tees alone, in dawning bright,

Shall rush upon the ravish'd sight;
But many a tributary stream

Each from its own dark dell shall gleam:
Staindrop, who, from her silvan bowers,
Salutes proud Raby's battled towers;
The rural brook of Egliston,
And Balder, named from Odin's son ;
And Greta, to whose banks ere long
We lead the lovers of the song;
And silver Lune, from Stanmore wild,
And fairy Thorsgill's murmuring child,
And last and least, but loveliest still,
Romantic Deepdale's slender rill.

SIR W. SCOTT.

[From The Lay of the Last Minstrel,

Canto iv.]

WEET Teviot! on thy silver tide

SWEE

The glaring bale-fires blaze no more;
No longer steel-clad warriors ride

Along thy wild and willow'd shore;
Where'er thou wind'st, by dale or hill,
All, all is peaceful, all is still,

As if thy waves, since Time was born,
Since first they roll'd upon the Tweed,
Had only heard the shepherd's reed,
Nor started at the bugle-horn.

SIR W. SCOTT.

[From Marmion, Introduction to Canto ii.]

RISES the fog-smoke white as snow,

Thunders the viewless stream below,

Diving, as if condemn'd to lave

Some demon's subterranean cave,

Who, prison'd by enchanter's spell,

Shakes the dark rock with groan and yell.

SIR W. SCOTT.