"I was fortunate in seeking the 'birth-place of a native stream' after a very heavy fall of rain, and I followed the left hand branch to a basin, from which in winter time a full stream must pass with force, to judge by the deep channel-bed of white and bleached stones which the water has carved out of the peat-moss for itself. There was the clear height, and from it was seen quite distinctly Brathay Vale, and a glimpse of Duddon Vale at Cockley Beck, and of Windermere Lake below Lowwood, and the bare Yorkshire hills far away to the east-south-east." (H. D. Rawnsley.) ] II "CHILD OF THE CLOUDS! REMOTE FROM EVERY TAINT" Child of the clouds! remote from every taint Of sordid industry thy lot is cast; Thine are the honours of the lofty waste;[A] Not seldom, when with heat the valleys faint, Thy handmaid Frost with spangled tissue quaint 5 Thy cradle decks;--to chant thy birth, thou hast No meaner Poet than the whistling Blast, And Desolation is thy Patron-saint![EX] She guards thee, ruthless Power! who would not spare Those mighty forests, once the bison's screen, 10 Where stalked the huge deer to his shaggy lair[EY] Through paths and alleys roofed with darkest[434] green Thousands of years before the silent air Was pierced by whizzing shaft of hunter keen! VARIANTS: [Footnote 433: 1837. Better to breathe upon this aëry height Than pass ... 1820. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote EX: See note [EV] to the previous sonnet.--ED.] III "HOW SHALL I PAINT THEE?--BE THIS NAKED STONE" How shall I paint thee?--Be this naked stone My seat, while I give way to such intent; Pleased could my verse, a speaking monument, Make to the eyes of men thy features known. But as of all those tripping lambs not one 5 Outruns his fellows, so hath Nature lent To thy beginning nought that doth present Peculiar ground[435] for hope to build upon. To dignify the spot that gives thee birth, No sign of hoar Antiquity's esteem 10 Appears, and none of modern Fortune's care; Yet thou thyself hast round thee shed a gleam Of brilliant moss, instinct with freshness rare;[EZ] Prompt offering to thy Foster-mother, Earth! VARIANTS: [Footnote 434: 1845. ... sombre ... 1820. ] [Footnote 435: 1837. ... grounds ... 1820. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote EY: The deer alluded to is the Leigh, a gigantic species long since extinct.--W. W. 1820. "As one looks upon the peat-moss, with its fragments of birch trees laid bare by the stream, one could easily imagine that the poet had been led, as he gazed, to think of Those mighty forests, once the bison's screen, Where stalked the huge deer to his shaggy lair." (H. D. Rawnsley.) ]