[429] 1827.

[430] The date, 1820, was first inserted in the edition of 1837.

[ER] In the first edition of 1820, this dedicatory poem is not placed at the beginning of the series, but between the lines Composed at Cora Linn, and Repentance. The whole volume, however,—including many other poems besides those on the Duddon, and the Topographical Description of the Country of the Lakes in the North of England—is dedicated thus, "To the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., etc. etc., these sonnets called forth by one of the most beautiful streams of his native county, are respectfully inscribed, by his affectionate brother, William Wordsworth."—Ed.

[ES] The fields and streams were those around Cockermouth and Hawkshead. It was near the island Cythera that Aphrodite was said, according to some legends, to have risen from the sea-foam. Hence the term "Cytherea's zone." The "Thunderer" is, of course, Jupiter Tonans.—Ed.

[ET] Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was then Rector of Lambeth parish.—Ed.

[EU] With this last stanza compare what Charles Lamb wrote to Dorothy Wordsworth on May 25, 1820, after reading the poem: "I have traced the Duddon in thought and with repetition along the banks (alas!) of the Lea—(unpoetical name): it is always flowing and murmuring in my ears." (Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii. p. 56.)—Ed.

[431] 1837.

[432] 1837.

[433] 1837.

[EV] See Horace, Carmina III. 13, Ad fontem Blandusiæ:

and compare Epistolae I. 16, 9.—Ed.

[EW] Mr. Herbert Rix—late Assistant Secretary to the Royal Society—has made a very minute and careful study of the Duddon Valley—repeated during many seasons—with the object of localising the allusions in the sonnets. I am indebted to him for the following notes, which bear his name.

The Rev. Canon Rawnsley has also studied the Duddon Valley with great care, and I place his comments beside those of Mr. Rix, both when they are supplementary, and when they differ from the conclusions come to by Mr. Rix.—Ed.

"The Duddon rises on Wrynose Fell, near to the 'Three-Shire Stone,' where Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire meet, though which of the rills descending from the heights above Wrynose Gap and uniting to form the streamlet which flows along the pass, is to be regarded as the ultimate source, or which of them the poet may have followed, it would perhaps be difficult to say. More than one takes its rise in just such a spot as we find described in the second and third sonnets, where the 'lofty waste' is haunted by the Spirit of 'Desolation,' where the 'whistling blast' sweeps bleakly by, and where 'naked stones,' such as the poet chose for his seat, are scattered all around. James Thorne, in his Rambles by Rivers (London, 1844, p. 10), has given a rough woodcut of the source of the Duddon." (Herbert Rix.)

"I was fortunate in seeking the 'birth-place of a native stream' after a very heavy fall of rain, and I followed the left hand branch to a basin, from which in winter time a full stream must pass with force, to judge by the deep channel-bed of white and bleached stones which the water has carved out of the peat-moss for itself. There was the clear height, and from it was seen quite distinctly Brathay Vale, and a glimpse of Duddon Vale at Cockley Beck, and of Windermere Lake below Lowwood, and the bare Yorkshire hills far away to the east-south-east." (H. D. Rawnsley.)

[434] 1845.

[EX]
[EXa] See note [EV] to the previous sonnet.—Ed.

[EY] The deer alluded to is the Leigh, a gigantic species long since extinct.—W. W. 1820.

"As one looks upon the peat-moss, with its fragments of birch trees laid bare by the stream, one could easily imagine that the poet had been led, as he gazed, to think of

[435] 1837.

[EZ] "'A gleam of brilliant moss' refers, no doubt, to the Sphagnum, or Bog-moss, which grows here in large patches, very noticeable among the sombre heather, and which shines like gold when the sunlight is upon it." (Herbert Rix.)

"On the edge of the saucer-like hollow, into which the rillets that make the stream descend, are glacier-banded rock outcrops, and on one of these is a rock perché, to which instinctively I turned for a seat. The lines in Sonnet III.—

at once suggested themselves to me; and below me, as I sat, gleamed the 'brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare,' which the poet's eyes had rejoiced in, so many years ago." (H. D. Rawnsley.)

[436] 1820.

[437] 1820.

[FA] "The 'parting glance' of this sonnet would naturally be taken just before rounding the brow of the hill. The path drops somewhat suddenly, so that two or three steps bring the traveller from a level whence looking backward the 'sinuous lapse' of the stream may be seen for some distance, to a stage where it is entirely hidden from view. Or, more likely, the 'sinuous lapse' is that which lies below the spectator, as he stands at this point of vantage, and looks down into Wrynose Bottom. The 'Protean change' is then the contrast between the 'cradled Nursling' as the poet looks back into Wrynose Gap, and the 'loosely-scattered chain' or 'glittering snake' which he sees below him, as he turns and looks down into Wrynose Bottom. These similes are accurately descriptive of the river so seen, especially towards evening when the western light is on the water. From this point the Duddon descends to the valley by a quick series of falls. The first of these falls—a very pretty cascade just at the edge of the hill—is probably the 'dizzy steep' mentioned in the sonnet." (Herbert Rix.)

[FB] "As I went towards the road which leads down from the Three Shire Stones to Cockley Beck, I constantly found myself repeating Sonnet number IV.

The stream seemed now 'a loosely-scattered chain to make,' now to 'appear a glittering snake,' silently 'thridding with sinuous lapse the rushes, through' (if we might call the bog-myrtle bushes dwarf willows) 'dwarf willows gliding, and by ferny brake.'

I regained the main road, and took a parting, 'no negligent adieu' at the 'cradled nursling'; and saw the cascade at the grotto—wherefrom I first began to track the 'nursling' to its upland cradle—as white as snow in May. There, thought I, is the sight that suggested the line—

But, if the poet had needed suggestion of such a picture, and he had been at my side, he would have seen in three other directions, from the place where I was standing, three 'cataracts blowing their trumpets from the steep.' And I could have been induced to follow three other streams up into the Fells towards the north for the birth-place of the 'cradled nursling.'

As I descended towards Cockley Beck I constantly looked for the 'rushes,' the 'dwarf willows,' and the 'ferny brake,' spoken of in Sonnet IV., constantly looked for some other spot where I might take a 'parting glance' of the stream, which would satisfy the requirements of the description in Sonnet IV.; but I found none.

One thing is worth mentioning. Wordsworth is describing the Duddon as a Cumberland stream, his native stream, and he is accurate as ever. For one is struck, in descending from the Three Shire Stones to Cockley Beck, at the way in which all the feeders of the Duddon rise to the north on the Cumbrian Fells, and how comparatively waterless are the slopes of Grey Friars, on the southern or Lancashire side of the pass." (H. D. Rawnsley.)

[FC] "Sonnet V. is generally taken to be descriptive of Cockley Beck. Here, as we emerge from Wrynose Bottom, the first trees meet the eye after a full two miles of monotony and stones, and here, too, is the first cottage where the 'ruddy children' of another generation 'sport through the summer day.' The cottage itself is not indeed surrounded at the present time by 'sheltering pines'—that is a feature which applies better to another cottage half a mile lower down the stream—but they may, of course, have disappeared since Wordsworth's day; indeed, I was informed in 1885, by a woman then living in the cottage, that many which formerly stood behind the cottage had been felled within her own memory. A very accurate picture of the cottage and neighbouring bridge is given in Harry Goodwin's Through the Wordsworth Country. There is also a sketch at page 15 of Thorne's Rambles by Rivers." (Herbert Rix.)

"Wordsworth would probably have in his mind most of the few cots and farms in the upper reaches of the Duddon Vale as he wrote his Sonnet v. Half-a-mile south, the 'craggy mound' of the castle-like rock would rear out of mid-valley impressively enough. The larches that now sway and whisper about Cockley Beck, or on the little mound to the east of it, would then only be tiny trees. The birches may have risen in 'silver colonnade,' but now a few ashes, a few poplars, a few alders are the only trees near. Still, for the most part, the term 'unfruitful solitudes' characterises the spot; and as the traveller at Cockley Beck looks north and east, these solitudes become impressively solemn from the dark desolation of craggy fell-side and utter treelessness." (H. D. Rawnsley.)

[FD]

These two lines are in a great measure taken from The Beauties of Spring, a Juvenile Poem, by the Rev. Joseph Sympson, author of The Vision of Alfred, etc. He was a native of Cumberland, and was educated in the vale of Grasmere, and at Hawkshead school: his poems are little known, but they contain passages of splendid description; and the versification of his Vision of Alfred is harmonious and animated. The present severe season,[438] with its amusements, reminds me of some lines which I will transcribe as a favourable specimen. In describing the motions of the Sylphs, that constitute the strange machinery of his Vision of Alfred, he uses the following illustrative simile:—

He was a man of ardent feeling, and his faculties of mind, particularly his memory, were extraordinary. Brief notices of his life ought to find a place in the History of Westmoreland.—W. W. 1820.

[FE] "Even in the 'unfruitful solitudes' of Wrynose, one may find—sheltered in the little gullies which the rills have worn down the fell-side—not only the strawberry, speedwell, and thyme, mentioned in the sonnet, but sundry other flowers, such as the Spearwort, Milkwort, Small Bedstraw, Euphrasia officinalis, and Potentilla tormentilla, but this and the following Sonnet were perhaps inspired by the beauty of the flowery meadows just below Cockley Beck." (Herbert Rix.)

"Wordsworth, from his Sonnet VI., would seem to have been describing the Duddon in April; and though by some misnomer 'the little speedwell's darling blue' has by him been called the 'trembling eyebright,' to-day in July 1884—though the time of the singing of birds who 'warble to their paramours' is over and gone—one can see by Duddon-side these 'old remains of hawthorn bowers.'

But I shall never forget the beauty or the size of the golden feathery spikes of sweet-scented Gallium (lady's bed straw), or the wonderful odour of the self-heal, and the glory of the harebells, as I saw them carpeting the meadows near Cockley Beck, this July day, 1884; and, as I plucked the very faintly scented euphrasia (or eyebright), I wondered much which were the spring-flowers Wordsworth had in his mind that by their breath invited no caress. Would it be the buttercup, the daisy, or which? He must have had some definite flower—scentless, but not less beautiful—in his eye as he wrote Sonnet VI." (H. D. Rawnsley.)

[438] This refers to the year 1820, and the sentence only occurs in the edition of 1820.—Ed.

[FF] "The 'darkling wren' was flitting from bush to bush, tuneless but happy, as I walked towards the stepping-stones spoken of in Sonnets IX., X.; and the timid little sandpiper, with its plaintive note, shot back and forward from shallow to shallow." (H. D. Rawnsley.)

[439] 1837.

[FG] "The 'dark dell' is perhaps Hardknot Ghyll. It is the only spot in this part of the valley which could be so described. A footpath which passes through the farmyard of Black Hall runs alongside this ghyll and joins the Duddon Valley with the Whitehaven Road. The 'blue streamlet' would then perhaps be the little tributary which flows down the length of the ghyll over a slaty bed to join the Duddon below; or perhaps Wordsworth was mentally addressing the Duddon itself, though from the interior of the ghyll he would not be able to see it.

The alternative view is that by the 'dark dell' no particular spot is indicated but the whole of the upper valley of the Duddon, which is of a savage and forbidding aspect, and quite of a character to have inspired the sonnet. It is almost treeless, and the ground on either side of the stream is covered with bracken and loose blocks of slate, while the fells rise steeply on either hand, and are capped by naked crags.

As to the epithet 'blue' (line 10), the cerulean colour of the Duddon is one of its most exquisite characteristics, and is due, as Wordsworth has himself[FH] explained, to the hue of the rocks and gravel seen through the 'perfectly pellucid' water." (Herbert Rix.)

"This sonnet puzzles me from the use of the words dark dell. I could find nothing at all hereabout that could possibly be described so, until I looked back at the rain-black solitudes north of Cockley Beck, and imagined the poet using the word dark in the sense of mysterious, when I can imagine he would have been helped to this thought of hideous usages, and rites accursed, by the large Druid-like-looking boulders, and the mounds of burial, suggested by the moraine-heaps in the neighbourhood. But I think the 'blue Streamlet' must have been suggested by the light blue grey colour of the slate pebbles over which Duddon slides so easily here." (H. D. Rawnsley.)

[FH] See his Guide to the Lakes. Fifth edition. Kendal, 1835, p. 27.—Ed.

[FI] "There are four sets of stepping-stones across the Duddon. The first set is between Cockley Beck and Birks Brig, opposite to a farmhouse called Dale Head; the second set, called by the natives of the district the 'Fiddle Steps,' is in a deep hollow between Birks Brig and Seathwaite, at a point where the footpath to Eskdale crosses the Duddon; the third is opposite Seathwaite, and the fourth just above Ulpha.

Of these, the second and fourth may, I think, be disregarded. The question lies between the first and third, which we will call respectively the upper and the lower stones.

James Thorne has fixed upon the upper stones as those of Wordsworth's two sonnets, and has given a picture of them. His woodcut is very rude, but is sufficiently defined by the number of the stones, the gate on the right, and the distant cottage on the left. Mrs. Lynn Linton, too, in her Lake Country (London, 1864, p. 251), claims the honour for the same set, and has given (p. 252), a very pretty picture of them. Miss Martineau, on the contrary, in her Survey of the Lake District,[441] appears to regard the stones opposite Seathwaite as the stones; and the Rev. F. A. Malleson, in his article on 'Wordsworth and the Duddon,'[442] takes the same view. This is the view which local tradition favours, for any inhabitant of Seathwaite or Ulpha, if asked for 'Wordsworth's Stones,' would at once direct the stranger to the lower stones.

There is something to be said for each of these opinions. The upper stones fit in with the order of the sonnets, coming after the sonnet about Cockley Beck, and before the sonnets about the Faëry Chasm, Seathwaite Chapel, and Ulpha Kirk. Moreover, the emphasis of the earlier sonnets in general, and of the opening lines of Sonnet IX. in particular, is on the growth of the 'struggling rill'—a thought which would be rather out of place if it came later in the series.

On the other hand the 'zone chosen for ornament,' and the 'studied symmetry' are more applicable to the lower than to the upper stones; they are of a bluish tint, are set at equal distances, and form a slight curve down stream, looking to a fanciful eye as though they were bending with the current. They are now (1894) disused, having been abandoned, on account of the frequent floods, in favour of a foot-bridge recently erected a little higher up the stream; and already the path to the stepping-stones is overgrown and nearly obliterated. If the sonnets are taken to refer to the lower stones 'yon high rock' would probably mean Wallabarrow; if to the upper stones, they would doubtless mean Castle How, a solitary and noticeable rock." (Herbert Rix.)

"One cannot but believe that Wordsworth, as he wrote Sonnets IX., X., had in his mind the third series of stepping-stones opposite Seathwaite, and under Wallabarrow Crag.

None of the others are fitly described as

Is it not possible that the word 'struggling,' as applied to rill,—when viewed in connection with the words 'without restraint,' in line 8 of Sonnet IX.—points with great definiteness to the localising of the Sonnet at these Seathwaite stones?

Certainly the stream as it has descended through the 'deep chasm' of Sonnet XV. between the Pen and Wallabarrow, is well described as having grown after a struggle into a brook of loud and stately march at this point. There are no likelier spots for the children to have put

than here, for there are several houses and farms on the wayside, whose younger inmates would have come down to these stepping-stones, in order to get to the village school, that 'Wonderful Walker' kept with so much honour at Seathwaite in olden time." (H. D. Rawnsley.)

[441] Whellan's History and Topography of Westmoreland and Cumberland, 4to, Pontefract, 1860, p. 56.

[442] Good Words, vol. xxiv. p. 579.

[440] 1837.