The Duddon Sonnets - Notes to Sonnet IX

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!

The location of this sonnet can be identified precisely as the stepping stones are marked on an Ordinance Survey Landranger map.

3 The Duddon  stepping stones grid ref  NY 239 006

Wordsworth takes the opportunity to make the point that Nature challenges the developing child and tests ‘Declining manhood’ – the theme of mortality and the transience of human existence is re-visited at the end of the series.

No doubt the stepping stones have changed over the past 200 years, but judged by their condition today, they would still put ‘budding courage to the proof.’