The Duddon Sonnets - Notes to Sonnet VII

VII

          "CHANGE me, some God, into that breathing rose!"

          The love-sick Stripling fancifully sighs,

          The envied flower beholding, as it lies

          On Laura's breast, in exquisite repose;

          Or he would pass into her bird, that throws

          The darts of song from out its wiry cage;

          Enraptured,--could he for himself engage

          The thousandth part of what the Nymph bestows;

          And what the little careless innocent

          Ungraciously receives. Too daring choice!                   10

          There are whose calmer mind it would content

          To be an unculled floweret of the glen,

          Fearless of plough and scythe; or darkling wren

          That tunes on Duddon's banks her slender voice.

L.5 – ‘pass’ -  here used in the archaic sense of  to cross over or become, reflecting its derivation from the medieval French ‘passer’.

The Augustan interlude continues. However, whereas the previous sonnet seems a fond pastiche of the previous century’s ornate style, then this sonnet borders on parody.  It is written from the point of view of an adolescent and gently mocks the Petrarchan sonnet’s typical theme of unrequited love by referring to ‘Laura’ as the object of desire.

The first part of the poem explores two ‘fanciful’ images of unrequited love – the rose and the caged songbird. The volta is delayed until L.10 when a ‘calmer mind’ advises solitude over the pangs of love in the form of an ‘unculled’ floweret or lone ‘darkling wren’.

The latter part of the poem uses simpler language and re-introduces the Duddon as a theme.