Aubrey Thomas De Vere

To Wordsworth, on Visiting the Duddon

I.

SO long as Duddon ’twixt his cloud-girt walls
Thridding the woody chambers of the hills
Warbles from vaulted grot and pebbled halls
Welcome or farewell to the meadow rills;
So long as linnets chant low madrigals
Near that brown nook the laborer whistling tills,
Or the late-reddening apple forms and falls
Mid dewy brakes the autumnal redbreast thrills,
So long, last poet of the great old race,
Shall thy broad song through England’s bosom roll,
A river singing anthems in its place,
And be to later England as a soul.
Glory to Him who made thee, and increase
To them that hear thy word, of love and peace!

II.

WHEN first that precinct sacrosanct I trod
Autumn was there, but Autumn just begun;
Fronting the portals of a sinking sun,
The queen of quietude in vapor stood,
Her sceptre o’er the dimly crimsoned wood
Resting in light. The year’s great work was done;
Summer had vanished, and repinings none
Troubled the pulse of thoughtful gratitude.
Wordsworth! the autumn of our English song
Art thou; ’t was thine our vesper psalms to sing:
Chaucer sang matins; sweet his note and strong,	
His singing-robe the green, white garb of Spring:
Thou like the dying year art rightly stoled,—
Pontine purple and dark harvest gold.