are probably an allusion to the Inn which, in Wordsworth's time, was to be found here. This is now a farmstead. It is called Newfield, and is just below Seathwaite Chapel. In Wordsworth's day it was inn and farm combined. Mr. Malleson, in the article quoted above, appears (p. 576) to regard the green slope ascending towards Seathwaite Tarn, which opens on the left about a mile before the traveller reaches Seathwaite Chapel, as the 'Open Prospect'; but, though the fields here are certainly 'sprinkled o'er with dwellings,' the juxtaposition of the 'hamlet,' the 'barn and byre,' and the 'spouting mill' is wanting, and the allusion to the inn loses its point." (Herbert Rix.) * * * * * "It may be of interest to know that still the Newfield farm (in Wordsworth's time farm and inn combined) keeps up the well-deserved description of the poet. It is still 'a generous household.' When the yeoman, who was the last innkeeper and farmer combined, was on his death-bed, he enjoined those to whom Newfield passed to remember that 'though the license was to drop, and it was to become a private house, yet no stranger in the valley who requested a night's lodging was ever to be refused,' and the generous household are proud to keep up the tradition of hospitality." (H. D. Rawnsley.)] [Footnote FM: Compare Virgil, _Æneid_ iii. 23-- Densis hastilibus horrida myrtus. (W. G. Rushbrooke.) ] XIV "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 5 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] 10 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. XV "FROM THIS DEEP CHASM, WHERE QUIVERING SUNBEAMS PLAY"