Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide'

Arthur Streeton painted this landscape at the Eaglemont Homestead near Heidelberg during the summer of 1890, when he was only 22 years old. The scene presents an idealised vision of the Yarra River at Heidelberg, with the Doncaster Tower in the middle distance and the Dandenong Ranges beyond.

The title is taken from Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘Conclusion’ from his poem cycle 'The River Duddon'. A Romantic expression of the mortality and transience of human life contrasted with the enduring beauty of art, the poem appealed to the young painter and expressed something of his own ambitions for his artistic practice.