"How does the water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon, at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store;
And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.
From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry.
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till, in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.
The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among;
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound:
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, -
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
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Comments
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your poem
From guest anonymous (contact)
we use it once for our choral reading and won 1st!really cool.. -
Southey: The Cataract of Lodore
From guest S. Wolfson (contact)
redeems Southey from absolute denigration by Byron! -
your poem
From guest codi (contact)
I think your poem is very good and interestin i like how you used all those words in it like rush and roar and rills and gills and hpow you were describing the word like rising leapindg but it is a very cool poem from:codi -
Your poem
From guest Aimee (contact)
I think your poem is very ineresting and I think that it is one of the best poems i have read in my intire life. there are alot of echoic words in your poem and it is very nice, it describes what is happening and it tells the reader what is happening and it makes them feel like they are there. From: Aimee -
your poem
From guest stephanie (contact)
i think your poem is very interesting how you used all of those echoics. we did this poem for poetry in school and i LOVED reading it From:Stephanie -
Camp Poem
From guest Charlie J. (contact)
I will gladly be reading this to my party later this summer prior to launching our own expidetion down these waters. -
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Thanks for picking up the errors in The Cataract of Lodore
by Robert Southey - this is the kind of assistance that helps us to maintain the standards on Oldpoetry.
Von
Oldpoetry Team -
I'm sure Southey had fun writing this and his children (or grandchildren?) enjoyed hearing him recite it. You did a great job in transcribing it for the site, but I found two typos:
1. There is no "extra line" or "double line break" between lines 53 and 54.
2. The last word in line 54 should be "waging" not "raging"
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