I. Nor envying shades which haply yet may throw Than pass in needless sleep from dream to dream : 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, And Desolation is thy Patron-saint! She guards thee, ruthless Power! who would not spare * The deer alluded to is the Leigh, a gigantic species long since extinct. 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, IV. TAKE, cradled Nursling of the mountain, take A Protean change seems wrought while I pursue Else let the Dastard backward wend, and roam, 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; 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. |