[ES] The fields and streams were those around Cockermouth and Hawkshead. It was near the island Cythera that Aphrodite was said, according to some legends, to have risen from the sea-foam. Hence the term "Cytherea's zone." The "Thunderer" is, of course, Jupiter Tonans.—Ed.
[ET] Dr. Christopher Wordsworth, afterwards Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was then Rector of Lambeth parish.—Ed.
[EU] With this last stanza compare what Charles Lamb wrote to Dorothy Wordsworth on May 25, 1820, after reading the poem: "I have traced the Duddon in thought and with repetition along the banks (alas!) of the Lea—(unpoetical name): it is always flowing and murmuring in my ears." (Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. ii. p. 56.)—Ed.
I
"NOT ENVYING LATIAN SHADES—IF YET THEY THROW"
Not envying Latian shades—if yet they throw
A grateful coolness round that crystal Spring,
Blandusia, prattling—as when long ago
The Sabine Bard was moved her praise to sing;[431][EV]
Careless of flowers that in perennial blow