The River Duddon

I heard the Duddon
Round a pebbly bend
Stifle a fit of laughter
Like a teenage girl:
And all day long, cuckoos
Had bounced their ping–pong voices
Crag to crag.

I know as well as you
Cuckoos are not
The most exemplary of birds.
I know the Duddon
Under cover of its laughter
Steadily renders crags to grit
And lays them down
Superfluously
On level sands.

It makes no odds.
Beethoven, Wordsworth —
Long since conditioned me
Only to hear their music.