The Duddon Sonnets - Notes to Sonnet XXXI

XXXI

          THE KIRK of ULPHA to the pilgrim's eye

          Is welcome as a star, that doth present

          Its shining forehead through the peaceful rent

          Of a black cloud diffused o'er half the sky:

          Or as a fruitful palm-tree towering high

          O'er the parched waste beside an Arab's tent;

          Or the Indian tree whose branches, downward bent,

          Take root again, a boundless canopy.

          How sweet were leisure! could it yield no more

          Than 'mid that wave-washed Churchyard to recline,           10

          From pastoral graves extracting thoughts divine;

          Or there to pace, and mark the summits hoar

          Of distant moonlit mountains faintly shine,

          Soothed by the unseen River's gentle roar.

The flights of fancy concerning palm trees and tropical forests and musings over distant moonlit mountains illustrate well Wordsworth’s thoughts about ‘fancy’ in poetry more generally:

Fancy depends upon the rapidity and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and images; trusting that their number, and the felicity with which they are linked together, will make amends for the want of individual value: or she prides herself upon the curious subtilty and the successful elaboration with which she can detect their lurking affinities. (Preface, 1815)

‘The Kirk of Ulpha’