From this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play Upon its loftiest crags, mine eyes behold A gloomy NICHE, capacious, blank, and cold;[FO] A concave free from shrubs and mosses grey; In semblance fresh, as if, with dire affray, 5 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 endeavour! or abruptly cast 10 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 pass'd? FOOTNOTES: [Footnote FN: See note [A] p. 243.--ED.] XVI AMERICAN TRADITION Such fruitless questions may not long beguile Or plague the fancy 'mid the sculptured shows Conspicuous yet where Oroonoko flows; _There_ would the Indian answer with a smile Aimed at the White Man's ignorance the while, 5 Of the GREAT WATERS telling how they rose, Covered the plains, and, wandering where they chose, Mounted through every intricate defile, Triumphant.--Inundation wide and deep, O'er which his Fathers urged, to ridge and steep 10 Else unapproachable, their buoyant way; And carved, on mural cliff's undreaded side, Sun, moon, and stars, and beast of chase or prey; Whate'er they sought, shunned, loved, or deified![FP] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote FO: "The 'deep chasm' of this sonnet is identical with the 'passage cleft through the wilderness' of Sonnet XIV. It lies between the Pen on the left hand, and Wallabarrow Crag on the right. As to the _niche_, which forms the subject of the sonnet, it cannot now be identified. There are, of course, plenty of such niches in the crags which tower above the Duddon just here, but none more striking than the rest. From the fact that it was 'free from shrubs and mosses grey,' one may perhaps infer that it was a place in the cliff from which a mass of rock had recently fallen. The bed of the stream just here is a chaos of such masses of rock, some of them being of enormous size. Mr. Chattock identifies the 'chasm' with that at Gowdrel, higher up the river--a view which, besides breaking the order of the sonnets, would seem to be excluded by Wordsworth's note on Sonnets XVII. and XVIII., wherein he expressly states that the scenery 'which gave occasion to the sonnets _from the 14th to the 20th inclusive_,' lies about Seathwaite. Mr. Chattock's remark that 'the rocks are columnar in character,' so that the fall of a fragment readily gives rise to the appearance of an elongated 'niche,' is worthy of note. It would probably apply to either chasm." (Herbert Rix.) "I searched most carefully for some Gloomy NICHE, capacious, blank, and cold,