"The image of a poet's heart, How calm, how tranquil, how serene!" But let us have the course of the Duddon given, in the first place, in Green's plain but picturesque prose. "The Duddon is a fine river, and its feeders flow precipitously in their descent to the valley. It rises at the Three County Stones on Wrynose, from which place to its junction with the Irish Sea, it separates the counties of Cumberland and Lancashire. Mosedale, which is in Cumberland, though appearing the highest part of Seathwaite, is, from its head down to Cockly-beck, a tame unmeaning valley, and would be wholly void of interest, were it not for the grand mountains of Eskdale, which are seen over its northern extremity; but from Cockly - beck by Black Hall to Goldrill Crag, which is about two miles, the scenery improves at - every step; but not the river, which, though occasionally pretty, is, upon the whole, tamely featured and lazy. At Goldrill Crag, it brightens into agitation, and, after various changes, becomes at Wallow-barrow Crag one scene of rude commotion, forming in its course a succession, not of high, but finely formed waterfalls. But these furious waters suddenly slumbering, become entranced, displaying little signs of life along the pleasant plains of Donnerdale. At Ulpha Bridge suspended animation is again succeeded by the clamorous war of stones and waters, which as sail the ear of the traveller all the way to Duddon Bridge. From that place to the sea it passes on in an uninterrupted and harmonious calm ness." Nothing can be better than thatexcept, perhaps, some of Green's etchings, which you may purchase almost paper-cheap from his excellent widow or daughter at the Exhibition either at Ambleside or Keswick. We remember an exquisite one up the river with Wallow-barrow Crag -and another, not less so, down the river with Goldrill Crag. Here they are in words. "The river at Wallowbarrow is opposed to many rude im VOL. XXXI. NO. CXCV. pediments, which are exhibited in an elegant diversity of rocks and stones, some of them of considerable magnitude, and all peculiarly and happily adapted as accompaniments to the many-shaped waterfalls, displayed in the short space of little more than half a mile. From this desirable bottom, the rocks on both sides ascend in individual wildness, and a beautifully undulating assemblage, to a good height; wood is not here in profusion, but it occasionally appears in picturesque association with the rocks and waters. A wellformed mountain terminates this craggy vista, by which the whole is rendered a additionally interesting." Of the view down the river, again, with Goldrill Crag, Green says-" It is a beautiful scene, and different in its character to any other about the Lakes; the rocks are elegant, and the trees spring from their fissures in picturesque variety. The second distance is composed of rocks, with soft turf and trees delightfully scattered over its surface; these rocks have the appearance of rising ground considerably lower than the level of the waters in sight, which is proved by the noise produced after leaving their peaceful solitudes above." Green goes on describing away, with pen as with pencil, the vale which was the darling of his honest heart. He tells us truly, that perhaps the finest part of this vale is between Seathwaite Chapel and Goldrill Cragabout two miles; that from Goldrill Crag to Cockly-beck - about two miles-the beauties diminish every step you take northward; and that from Cockly-beck to the countystones all is insipid. How fondly he speaks of the cottages! Especially of Throng, the hereditary property of the Dawsons, where never stranger found a scanty board. How affectionately of the trees! Almost every sort of tree, says he, is fine when aged, even the larch, and all the species of the fir. In Seathwaite, he adds, untutored nature seems to have held her dominion with a sway more absolute than in any other dale in the country; exotics have been sparingly introduced; and though there is rather a want than a redundancy of wood, the valley is better without them. From almost every point of this secluded bottom, (he is 3 L speaking of Throng, under the shadow of its wood-covered hill,) rocky knolls of various elevation, graced with the native beauties of the country, oak, ash, and birch, rise sweetly from the lower grounds; and over them, in many waving windings, the craggy mountains swell upon the eye in grand sublimity. The passionate painter is even yet loath to leave the vision-and concludes expressively saying with fine feeling, that in every engulfed valley in this country, there is, to his mind, somewhat of a melancholy solemnity; and that, unless it be in Ennerdale-dale, in none more than in Seathwaite. Though the Vales of Langdale are narrow, yet they possess an air of cheerfulness, probably as being bounded less stupendously than Seathwaite. In versified beauty they rival all others, even Borrowdale. Yet Borrowdale to its beauty adds an invariable grandeur, not so uniformly seen in Langdale. Seathwaite occasionally exhibits a vastness of desolation, exceeded only in Ennerdale-dale; but in magnificence of mountain-preci through Dwarf willows gliding, and by ferny brake." But how beautiful is the lad Duddon "Sole listener, Duddon! to the breeze that played Then sings the Bard of old remains of hawthorn bowers, and all the varied sweets of the Pastoral Flora. Not like a mere botanist, the assassin of the Hortus Siccus-but like philosophical and religious Bard as he is, with whom Poetry is Piety and the inspiration breathed from things of earth connects them all with heaven. "There bloom'd the strawberry of the wilderness; The trembling eye-bright show'd her The thyme her purple, like the blush of even; Invited, forth they peep'd so fair to view, All kinds alike seem'd favourites of heaven!" You have seen, we dare say, Stepping-stones across a stream, and have stepped from one to the other lightly or clumsily, as it may have happened, without any other thought than that they were useful, and saved you from the necessity of being wet-shod. We have heard more blockheads than one ask the meaning of those often quoted lines in Peter Bell "A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more." Such sumphs cannot conceive how it should be any thing more to any body; nor of Stepping-stones can they form any other opinion as to the excellence, than whether they are sufficiently close, and not shoggly. But thou! slim-ankled maiden, with pensive face wilt peruse the first, and with sparkling eyes the second of these sonnets, entitled "STEPPINGSTONES," "The struggling rill insensibly is grown if their fluttering hearts should stir too much, The Fairies are sometimes seen yet in Seathwaite. And there is a sonnet on the Faëry Chasm-about the sky-blue stone, within the sunless cleft, bearing the footmarks of the tiny elves. Fancy thus awakened will not be soon set asleep; and in another sonnet, she sees "Objects immense pourtray'd in miniature, Wild shapes for many a strange compa rison!" dure "Calm abysses pure, Bright liquid mansions, fashioned to en- leton, And the solidities of mortal pride, Palace and Tower, are crumbled into dust!" But the human heart of the poet longs again for human life; and, re-ascending from those sunless chasms, hear how he sings the "Open Pro Niagaras, Alpine passes, and abodes spect." of Naiads "Hail to the fields-with Dwellings sprinkled o'er, Laugh with the generous household heartily, But the Duddon is a strange stream; return ? ??????? ?????????? ???? a thousand to one you don't know him-so sternly is he transfigured from a sweet-singer into a Boanerges, or Son of Thunder. "O mountain Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot lonely, of this barren and bounteous But if we go on at this rate, Jonathan-we shall soon have "read oop" the whole volume. And what better might we do, lying here, all four of us, carelessly diffused on the greensward, far from the noisy world, en veloped in the visions of a great poet's soul? This is the way to know and feel the spirit of this lovely and Σβάνεσαισι 172 2003 SEXTHWAITE CHAPEL. Sacred Religion, mother of form and fear,' Lite ved Dread Arbitress of mutable respect, csc New rites ordaining when the old are wreck'd, 1 We Do That seeks to stifle it; -as in those days 9107 1078.2001 ULPHA KIRK. durist The Kirk of Ulpha to the Pilgrim's eye isis deliver as a fruitful palm-tree towering high Over the parch'd waste beside an Arab's tent; 24 imagem How sweet were leisure! could it yield no more- Than 'mid that wave-wash'd Churchyard to recline, Prevailing poet! here, among the scenes thou hast so finely sung, "Fit audience find, though few." Few, indeed! for the Three have vanished; and in Seathwaite Tarn, the shadows of no Christians are to be seen but those of Christopher and Jonathan. He informs us, that ere we had "read oop taa haf o't," the graceless, mannerless, fancyless, unfeeling, unprincipled, and uninitiated cubs had scampered over the knowe, and have probably been for an hour, at least, in another county! Yes, Jonathan you say right they are to be pitied; but we have reap ed Descent may be adverse to younger knees-but to ours it is natural; and, "Smooth-sliding, without step," down the sward, we feel like an aged eagle skimming in easy undulations, ere he alights to fold up his wings. Sweet Seathwaite! for, spite of all thy sternness, art thou, indeed, most sweet-may we believe from that sunny smile kindling up thy groves into greenness that obliterates the brown of thy superincumbent cliffs -that thou rejoicest to see again the Wanderer, who, in life's ardent A prime, was with thee so oft of yore in thy silvan solitudes! Much changed-thou seest-are we-in face and figure so sorely changed that haply we seem to thee a stranger, and must pass by a disregarded sha dow! Alas! we feel as if we were forgotten! we, and all those dawns, morns, days, eves, and nights! Insensate Seathwaite! what art thou but an assemblage of rocks, stones, clods, stumps, and trees? Our that vivified beauty-till becamest imaginationalty symbolical of all spiritual essences, embodied Poetry of a paradisaical state of being, which, on this fair representment, transcendently returns -but overspread now, and interfused with a profoundest pathos that almost subdues the glory of nature into the glimmer of the grave, solemnizing life by death, and subjecting the dim past and the bright present to the mysterious future, till faith flings herself humbly at the feet of God. And thou, too, art somewhat changed, sweet Seathwaite! Thou, too, art getting old! But with thee, age is but a change into "beauty still more beauteous." A gradual alteration, during all the while of our long absence, has been silently taking place upon the character of thy groves. Glades are gone like overshadowed sun-spots. We, see rocky pastures where then the coppice-wood grewsmooth fields of barley-braird that then were rocky pastures. We miss that bright blue river-heard above the Alder Ford-where hung the nesthiding hazels; we hear, not see, the Fairies' waterfall. Pools that of yore still slept in branchy twilight, now shine in day and picture-passing clouds. Some oaks have fallen that should have lived for ever; and strange confusion in our memory grows from the whole of these bewildering woods. But amidst all the change of unceasing growth and unceasing decay, thou art the same sweet Seathwaite still-and unaltered for ever the lines magnificent now drawn by thy multitudinous |