O Mountain Stream! The Shepherd And His Cot

O mountain Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot Are privileged Inmates of deep solitude; Nor would the nicest Anchorite exclude A field or two of brighter green, or plot Of tillage-ground, that seemeth like a spot Of stationary sunshine:--thou hast viewed These only, Duddon! with their paths renewed By fits and starts, yet this contents thee not. Thee hath some awful Spirit impelled to leave, Utterly to desert, the haunts of men,[FN] Though simple thy companions were and few; And through this wilderness a passage cleave Attended but by thy own voice, save when The clouds and fowls of the air thy way pursue!

This sonnet was first published in the small two-volume edition of the Poems in 1807, and was therefore written during or before 1807. In the present edition, however, it was not printed amongst the poems belonging to that year, since its appropriate place is manifestly in the series of sonnets relating to the River Duddon.--ED.