Poem of the Week 2024/16

To the River North Esk

In museful mood, how frequent here I stray

When summer smiles illume the lovely scene!

Sweet river! on thy margin, soft and green,

I turn, and oft retrace my winding way;

And often on thy changeful surface gaze,

Where the smooth stream reflects an azure sky,

Red rock, green moss, and shrubs of darker dye, –

Or gayly gleams with bright meridian rays.

Here, scarce a zephyr curves the glassy plain,

And scarce a murmur meets the listening ear:

There, white foam swells the wave, and still we hear

The rushing waters tumbling down amain,

Till, softening in their course, the noiseless tide

Within the enchanting mirror gently glide.

– Mary Edgar

The River North Esk, celebrated in this early nineteenth-century sonnet, can be found flowing in Angus & Aberdeenshire in Scotland. Edgar celebrates one of the beauties of her native land with a combination of the formal & elevated elegance of eighteenth century verse (museful, illume, bright meridian rays & curving zephyrs, amain) with the Romantic movement's fascination with the spiritual riches to be found by gazing, in solitude, upon a natural landscape. Museful in the first line means meditative & pensive, but also evokes the Muses, those classical inspirers of the arts, including poetry. The author is clearly in a "poetic" mood; she comes to the river without utilitarian purpose, in a spirit of admiration. She strays there, she retraces her wandering way . . . wandering, usually alone, is a great Romantic preoccupation. In the days before photography, as the rugged Scottish landscape was taking hold in the imagination of Romantic Europe, the poet guides her readers to see the beauties she sees, in quite a detailed & directed way. She starts with the river banks, covered with lush soft green grass, then moves to the surface of the river. It seems a placid stream, & the poet recurs to its reflective qualities: it reflects the sky, the vivid red rocks & green moss; it is a "glassy plain", unruffled by the breezes; she ultimately fulfills the comparisons by naming the river an enchanting mirror. The stillness of the water is echoed in the stillness of the air, where scarce a murmur meets the attentive wanderer. Then she brings us to some sort of cascade or waterfall, where the waters foam & rush & tumble down with force, until, in the final, summary & cumulative, couplet, the splashing & crashing waters subside into a once-again noiseless tide, gently gliding into the mirror of the river, reflecting back to poet & reader the enchantment & relief that Nature affords her devotees.

I took this poem from the Oxford World's Classics anthology Scottish Poetry, 1730-1830, edited by Daniel Cook.