page_title: River Mole
section_title: Literature
hierarchical_section_title: River Mole / Literature
caption_attribution_description: English: The epic poem The Faerie Queene was written by Edmund Spenser (1552 – 1599). The first three books of The Faerie Queene were published in 1590, and a second set of three books were published in 1596.
context_page_description: The River Mole is a tributary of the River Thames in southern England. It rises in West Sussex near Horsham and flows northwest through Surrey for 80 km to the Thames at East Molesey, opposite Hampton Court Palace. The river gives its name to the Surrey district of Mole Valley. The Mole crosses the North Downs between Dorking and Leatherhead, where it cuts a steep-sided valley, known as the Mole Gap, through the chalk. Much of the catchment area lies on impermeable rock, meaning that the river level responds rapidly to heavy rainfall.
  During the second half of the 20th century pollution levels in the river were high; however, since 1995 the water quality has improved dramatically and the Mole now boasts the greatest diversity of fish species of any river in England. Twelve Sites of Special Scientific Interest that include wetland habitats are located within the Mole catchment area, and the stretch of river through Leatherhead has been designated a Local Nature Reserve. The Mole Gap forms part of a Special Area of Conservation and is an SSSI of European importance.
context_section_description: The river has captured the imagination of several authors and poets, particularly since in very hot summers the river channel can become dry between Dorking and Leatherhead (most recently during the 1976 drought).
  In The Faerie Queene (first published in 1590) Edmund Spenser wrote of the river:
  And Mole, that like a nousling mole doth make
  His way still under ground till Thamis he overtake.
  In Poly-Olbion (first published in 1612) the poet Michael Drayton described the journey taken by the River Thames to the sea:
  As still his goodly traine yet every houre increast,
  And from the Surrian shores cleer Wey came down to meet
  His Greatnes, whom the Tames so gratiously doth greet
  That with the Fearne-crown'd Flood he Minion-like doth play:
  Yet is not this the Brook, entiseth him to stay.
  But as they thus, in pompe, came sporting on the shole,
  Gainst Hampton-Court he meets the soft and gentle Mole.
  Whose eyes so pierc't his breast, that seeming to foreslowe
  The way which he so long intended was to go,
  With trifling up and down, he wandreth here and there;
  And that he in her sight, transparent might appeare,
  Applyes himselfe to Fords, and setteth his delight,
  On that which might make him gratious in her sight.
  But Tames would hardly on: oft turning back to show,
  For his much loved Mole how loth he was to go.
  The mother of the Mole, old Holmsdale, likewise beares
  Th'affection of her childe, as ill as they do theirs:
  But Mole respects her words, as vaine and idle dreames,
  Compar'd with that high joy, to be belov'd of Tames:
  And head-long holds her course, his company to win.
  Mole digs her selfe a path, by working day and night
  (According to her name, to shew her nature right)
  And underneath the Earth, for three miles space doth creep:
  Till gotten out of sight, quite from her mothers keep,
  Her foreintended course the wanton Nymph doth run;
  As longing to imbrace old Tame and Isis son...
  He writes in the appendix to Song XVII
  This Mole runnes into the earth, about a mile from Darking in Surrey, and after some two miles sees the light againe, which to be certaine hath been affirmed by Inhabitants thereabout reporting triall made of it.
  John Milton (c. 1562–1647) described the river as
  sullen Mole that runneth underneath
  In a similar vein, Alexander Pope (1688–1744) wrote in his poem Windsor Forest (first published 1713)
  And sullen Mole that hides his diving flood
  Robert Bloomfield (1766–1823) writes the following lines about the Mole Valley in his 1806 poem Wild Flowers.
  Sweet Health, I seek thee! Hither bring
  Thy balm that softens human ills;
  Come on the long drawn clouds that fling
  Their shadows o'er the Surry-Hills.
  Yon green-topt hills, and far away
  Where late as now I freedom stole,
  And spent one dear delicious day
  On thy wild banks romantic Mole.
  Ay there's the scene! Beyond the sweep
  Of London's congregated cloud,
  The dark-brow'd wood, the headlong steep,
  And valley paths without a crowd!
  Here Thames I watch thy flowing tides,
  Thy thousand sails am proud to see;
  But where the Mole all silent glides
  Dwells Peace - and Peace is wealth to me.
  Extract from The River Mole or Emlyn Stream by Mary Drinkwater Bethune, which was published in 1839.
  Who may count back that forgotten time
  When first the waters forced an outlet here:
  When the foundations of these stedfast hills
  Were shaken, and the long imprisoned stream
  Flowed through the yawning chasm? That awful day
  Yet leaves its trace. The waters find their way,
  Now laughing in the sun - now swallowed up
  In caverns pervious to their course alone,
  They leave their channel dry, and hide awhile
  Their silent flow; like bitter tears, unshed
  From the dim eye, before a careless world
  Unheeding of our grief; but swelling still
  In the full heart, which leaves unsoothed, unseen,
  And broods o'er ruined hopes, and days gone by.
caption: Title-page of The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, published in 1590.
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