The Duddon Sonnets - Notes to Sonnet XXIV

XXIV. THE RESTING-PLACE

          MID-NOON is past;--upon the sultry mead

          No zephyr breathes, no cloud its shadow throws:

          If we advance unstrengthened by repose,

          Farewell the solace of the vagrant reed!

          This Nook--with woodbine hung and straggling weed

          Tempting recess as ever pilgrim chose,

          Half grot, half arbour--proffers to enclose

          Body and mind, from molestation freed,

          In narrow compass--narrow as itself:

          Or if the Fancy, too industrious Elf,                       10

          Be loth that we should breathe awhile exempt

          From new incitements friendly to our task,

          Here wants not stealthy prospect, that may tempt

          Loose Idless to forego her wily mask.

The quietude of this poem contrasts with the clamour of the previous one. It continues the sense of a Picturesque arrangement reinforced by the continued adoption of Augustan practice – note particularly the personification in the final line.

If we advance unstrengthened by repose,

Farewell the solace of the vagrant reed!

I am uncertain quite what is meant by these lines – what is ‘the solace of the vagrant reed’?

A paraphrase of the remainder of the poem might be:

This ‘nook’ proffers to the pilgrim a resting place free from worldly ‘molestation’ due to its ‘narrow compass’. However if ‘Fancy’ will not rest, the place offers a ‘stealthy prospect’ for fanciful thoughts tempting Idleness to forego her wily mask.

The moral is, I guess, Fancy trumps Idleness.