The Duddon Sonnets - Notes to Sonnet XIX and XX

XX. THE PLAIN OF DONNERDALE

          THE old inventive Poets, had they seen,

          Or rather felt, the entrancement that detains

          Thy waters, Duddon! 'mid these flowery plains--

          The still repose, the liquid lapse serene,

          Transferred to bowers imperishably green,

          Had beautified Elysium! But these chains

          Will soon be broken;--a rough course remains,

          Rough as the past; where Thou, of placid mien,

          Innocuous as a firstling of the flock,

          And countenanced like a soft cerulean sky,                  10

          Shalt change thy temper; and, with many a shock

          Given and received in mutual jeopardy,

          Dance, like a Bacchanal, from rock to rock,

          Tossing her frantic thyrsus wide and high!

L.1 ‘The old inventive poets’ – poets of the Classical era, presumably.

This sonnet marks a return to a more traditional pastoral mode – the central conceit contrasts the wider, more meadow-like valley to be found between Donnerdale Hall and the hamlet of Ulpha – with the quixotic progress of the river which ‘changes temper’ from a ‘placid mien’ to a faster flowing stream which ‘dances like a Bacchanal’. Note the increased use of classical allusion, and a return to Augustan diction and latinate syntax:

                    Transferred to bowers imperishably green,

                    Had beautified Elysium! (L 5 – 6)

The Duddon at Donnerdale

               XIX. TRIBUTARY STREAM

          MY frame hath often trembled with delight

          When hope presented some far-distant good,

          That seemed from heaven descending, like the flood

          Of yon pure waters, from their aery height

          Hurrying, with lordly Duddon to unite;

          Who, 'mid a world of images imprest

          On the calm depth of his transparent breast,

          Appears to cherish most that Torrent white,

          The fairest, softest, liveliest of them all!

          And seldom hath ear listened to a tune                      10

          More lulling than the busy hum of Noon,

          Swoln by that voice--whose murmur musical

          Announces to the thirsty fields a boon

          Dewy and fresh, till showers again shall fall.

Tributary Stream – Tarn Beck joins the Duddon about 300m west of Seathwaite village.

The perturbation that the smaller stream causes is likened to the excitement hope gives to the calm mind.

L 10 – 14 whilst noting the irrigating effect of the stream the sonnet also introduces the notion of ‘thirst and noontide heat, which is taken up later in sonnet XXIV.