Ere yet our course was graced with social trees It lacked not old remains of hawthorn bowers, Where small birds warbled to their paramours; And, earlier still, was heard the hum of bees; I saw them ply their harmless robberies, 5 And caught the fragrance which the sundry flowers, Fed by the stream with soft perpetual showers, Plenteously yielded to the vagrant breeze. There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness; The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue,[FD] The thyme her purple, like the blush of Even; 11 And if the breath of some to no caress Invited, forth they peeped so fair to view, All kinds alike seemed favourites of Heaven.[FE] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote FC: "Sonnet V. is generally taken to be descriptive of Cockley Beck. Here, as we emerge from Wrynose Bottom, the first _trees_ meet the eye after a full two miles of monotony and stones, and here, too, is the first _cottage_ where the 'ruddy children' of another generation 'sport through the summer day.' The cottage itself is not indeed surrounded at the present time by 'sheltering pines'--that is a feature which applies better to another cottage half a mile lower down the stream--but they may, of course, have disappeared since Wordsworth's day; indeed, I was informed in 1885, by a woman then living in the cottage, that many which formerly stood behind the cottage had been felled within her own memory. A very accurate picture of the cottage and neighbouring bridge is given in Harry Goodwin's _Through the Wordsworth Country_. There is also a sketch at page 15 of Thorne's _Rambles by Rivers_." (Herbert Rix.) * * * * * "Wordsworth would probably have in his mind most of the few cots and farms in the upper reaches of the Duddon Vale as he wrote his Sonnet v. Half-a-mile south, the 'craggy mound' of the castle-like rock would rear out of mid-valley impressively enough. The larches that now sway and whisper about Cockley Beck, or on the little mound to the east of it, would then only be tiny trees. The birches may have risen in 'silver colonnade,' but now a few ashes, a few poplars, a few alders are the only trees near. Still, for the most part, the term 'unfruitful solitudes' characterises the spot; and as the traveller at Cockley Beck looks north and east, these solitudes become impressively solemn from the dark desolation of craggy fell-side and utter treelessness." (H. D. Rawnsley.)] [Footnote FD: There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness; The trembling eyebright showed her sapphire blue.