The Duddon Sonnets - Notes to Sonnet III

III

          How shall I paint thee?--Be this naked stone

          My seat, while I give way to such intent;

          Pleased could my verse, a speaking monument,

          Make to the eyes of men thy features known.

          But as of all those tripping lambs not one

          Outruns his fellows, so hath Nature lent

          To thy beginning nought that doth present

          Peculiar ground for hope to build upon.

          To dignify the spot that gives thee birth,

          No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem                          10

          Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care;

          Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a gleam

          Of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare;

          Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth!

L.2 ‘intent’ – purpose

L. 13 ‘instinct’ – inherent

The overall sense of the poem seems to be that – like a field of lambs, where you can’t tell one from the other, then the source of the Duddon has no outstanding feature, either from antiquity or the modern age to base a picture on.

Only the inherent qualities of nature itself – brilliant moss – is all that is available as an offering to the Duddon’s ‘Foster Mother, Earth’.

The opening question of ‘how shall I paint thee?’ places the poem firmly within the Picturesque.