The Duddon Sonnets - Notes to Sonnet XXXII

XXXII

          NOT hurled precipitous from steep to steep;

          Lingering no more 'mid flower-enamelled lands

          And blooming thickets; nor by rocky bands

          Held; but in radiant progress toward the Deep

          Where mightiest rivers into powerless sleep

          Sink, and forget their nature--'now' expands

          Majestic Duddon, over smooth flat sands

          Gliding in silence with unfettered sweep!

          Beneath an ampler sky a region wide

          Is opened round him:--hamlets, towers, and towns,           10

          And blue-topped hills, behold him from afar;

          In stately mien to sovereign Thames allied

          Spreading his bosom under Kentish downs,

          With commerce freighted, or triumphant war.

The series draws to a conclusion in elegiac mode, the movement and pace of this sonnet is very fine, the journey of the river is summarised in just a few lines and the slowing current of the river as it expands towards the estuary is captured with two beautifully position enjambments ‘Held’ (L.4) and ‘Sink’ (L.6).

Towards the end of the series Wordsworth asserts the relationship between the local and the national, and though he states his ‘native stream’ is in ‘stately mien to sovereign Thames’, nevertheless he is making the case that local landscape is as appropriate a subject for poetry as the Thames, which is a symbol of national economic and military power.