The Duddon Sonnets - Notes to Sonnet XXXIII

XXXIII. CONCLUSION

          BUT here no cannon thunders to the gale;

          Upon the wave no haughty pendants cast

          A crimson splendour: lowly is the mast

          That rises here, and humbly spread, the sail;

          While, less disturbed than in the narrow Vale

          Through which with strange vicissitudes he passed,

          The Wanderer seeks that receptacle vast

          Where all his unambitious functions fail

          And may thy Poet, cloud-born Stream! be free--

          The sweets of earth contentedly resigned,                   10

          And each tumultuous working left behind

          At seemly distance--to advance like Thee;

          Prepared, in peace of heart, in calm of mind

          And soul, to mingle with Eternity!

The series concludes with a prayer-like appeal to the river drawing a comparison between the soul mingling with eternity and the river merging into the sea. If sonnet XXXI illustrates the poem of Fancy, then surely this and ‘Afterthought’ which follows it exemplify a Poem of Imagination:

But the Imagination is conscious of an indestructible dominion;—the Soul may fall away from it, not being able to sustain its grandeur; but, if once felt and acknowledged, by no act of any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, impaired, or diminished.—Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part of our nature, Imagination to incite and to support the eternal. (Preface, 1815)