Chatsworth! Thy Stately Mansion, And The Pride

Composed 1830.--Published 1835.

[I have reason to remember the day that gave rise to this Sonnet, the 6th of November, 1830. Having undertaken, a great feat for me, to ride my daughter's pony from Westmoreland to Cambridge, that she might have the use of it while on a visit to her uncle at Trinity Lodge, on my way from Bakewell to Matlock I turned aside to Chatsworth, and had scarcely gratified my curiosity by the sight of that celebrated place before there came on a severe storm of wind and rain which continued till I reached Derby, both man and pony in a pitiable plight. For myself, I went to bed at noon-day. In the course of that journey I had to encounter a storm worse if possible, in which the pony could (or would) only make his way slantwise.

I mention this merely to add that notwithstanding this battering I composed, on horseback, the lines to the memory of Sir George Beaumont, suggested during my recent visit to Coleorton.--I.F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

Chatsworth! thy stately mansion, and the pride Of thy domain, strange contrast do present To house and home in many a craggy rent Of the wild Peak; where new-born waters glide Through fields whose thrifty occupants abide As in a dear and chosen banishment, With every semblance of entire content; So kind is simple Nature, fairly tried! Yet He whose heart in childhood gave her troth To pastoral dales, thin-set with modest farms, May learn, if judgment strengthen with his growth, That, not for Fancy only, pomp hath charms; And, strenuous to protect from lawless harms The extremes of favoured life, may honour both.

1831

The Poems of 1831 included The Primrose of the Rock, a few Sonnets, and Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems, composed during a tour in Scotland, and on the English Border, in the Autumn of 1831.--ED.