Poem by William Wordsworth

The River Duddon (FROM this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play)

FROM this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play
Upon its loftiest crags, mine eyes behold
A gloomy niche, capacious, blank, and cold;
A concave free from shrubs and mosses gray;
In semblance fresh, as if, with dire affray,
Some statue, placed amid these regions old
For tutelary service, thence had rolled,
Startling the flight of timid yesterday!
Was it by mortals sculptured?—weary slaves
Of slow endeavor! or abruptly cast
Into rude shape by fire, with roaring blast
Tempestuously let loose from central caves?
Or fashioned by the turbulence of waves,
Then when o’er highest hills the deluge passed?

1. To the Sons of Burns
2. Monument of Mrs. Howard
3. Suggested at Tyndrum in a Storm
4. Roman Antiquities
5. The Glen of Loch Etive

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