Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Rivers of England
By John Dyer (1700?–1758)N
When it beholds the labors of the loom;
How widely round the globe they are dispersed,
From little tenements by wood or croft,
Through many a slender path, how sedulous,
As rills to rivers broad, they speed their way
To public roads, to Fosse, or Watling Street,
Or Armine, ancient works; and thence explore,
Through every navigable wave, the sea
That laps the green earth round: through Tyne, and Tees,
Through Weare, and Lune, and merchandizing Hull,
And Swale, and Aire, whose crystal waves reflect
The various colors of the tinctured web;
Through Ken, swift rolling down his rocky dale,
Like giddy youth impetuous, then at Wick
Curbing his train, and, with the sober pace
Of cautious eld, meandering to the deep;
Through Dart, and sullen Exe, whose murmuring wave
Envies the Dune and Rother, who have won
The serge and kersie to their blanching streams.