Lines 49-54 Summary

Lines 49-52

Your destination and your destiny's
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage. 

• Finally, Shmoopers. We find out where we're going—our "destination" and "destiny." Fun fact: both destination and destiny share a common linguistic ancestor, the Latin destinare, which means to establish or make firm. And destinare actually comes from stare, which means to stand. Isn't that fitting? Here's a poem about going back to your roots and into your past. 
• The speaker equates the place you're heading to with your fate, which seems fitting, too. All of us have the same eventual destiny, the same destination. (Hint: it starts with a D.)
• In the world of the poem, our destination and destiny is "a brook that was the water of the house." In other words, we're headed to a stream that provided water to the house that once stood here. 
• The brook is described as cold and calm, as if it just sprung from the ground. When he says it's "too lofty and original to rage," he's referring to the fact that the brook is so calm because it's really close to its source. Which makes a lot of sense: water that is flowing from a nearby source hasn't gathered enough force to move with any power. It's too high up in the mountains, or "lofty," to have gathered steam yet.
• How do these lines make you feel, Shmooper? Peaceful, maybe? Calm, cool, and collected?

Lines 53-54

(We know the valley streams that when aroused
Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.) 

• These lines appear in parentheses, which makes us think they're more of an offhand sort of aside than something essential to the poem. 
• In these parentheses, the speaker is basically explaining his earlier comment about this brook—our destination—being "too lofty and original to rage." 
• How's that? Because we all know that when streams reach a low enough elevation—when they reach a valley, for example—they'll have gathered enough force (thanks to gravity) to tear at overhanging branches and bushes. In other words, once streams stray far enough from their origins, they totally rage. 
• We think there's something deeper going on here, too. Here, the valley seems to represent where we—the audience and the speaker—come from. What we're familiar with. But now, in this poem, we're in unfamiliar territory. We've journeyed back (in time and place) to where the stream originates—its source. Once again the speaker is connecting our physical journey in the poem to a journey back into our pasts—that is our destiny.