Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Dean-Bourn, a Rude River in Devon
By Robert Herrick (1591–1674)D
Deane, or thy warty incivility.
Thy rockie bottome, that doth teare thy streams,
And makes them frantick, ev’n to all extreames,
To my content, I never sho’d behold,
Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.
Rockie thou art; and rockie we discover
Thy men; and rockie are thy wayes all over.
O men, O manners! now, and ever knowne
To be a rockie generation!
A people currish, churlish as the seas,
And rude, almost, as rudest salvages;
With whom I did, and may re-sojourne when
Rockes turn to rivers, rivers turn to men.