Rivers of England. Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849). Rivers of England. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. England: Vols. I-IV

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Rivers of England

Ebenezer Elliott (1781–1849)


(From The Village Patriarch) FIVE rivers, like the fingers of a hand,
Flung from black mountains, mingle, and are one
Where sweetest valleys quit the wild and grand,
And eldest forests, o’er the silvan Don,
Bid their immortal brother journey on,	5
A stately pilgrim, watched by all the hills.
Say, shall we wander where, through warriors’ graves,
The infant Yewden, mountain-cradled, trills
Her Doric notes? Or where the Locksley raves
Of broil and battle, and the rocks and caves	10
Dream yet of ancient days? Or where the sky
Darkens o’er Rivilin, the clear and cold,
That throws his blue length, like a snake, from high?
Or where deep azure brightens into gold
O’er Sheaf, that mourns in Eden? Or where rolled	15
On tawny sands, through regions passion-wild,
And groves of love, in jealous beauty dark,
Complains the Porter, Nature’s thwarted child,
Born in the waste, like headlong Wiming? Hark!
The poised hawk calls thee, Village Patriarch!	20
He calls thee to his mountains! Up, away!
Up, up, to Stanedge! higher still ascend,
Till kindred rivers, from the summit gray,
To distant seas their course in beauty bend,
And, like the lives of human millions, blend	25
Disparted waves in one immensity!