THE BROOK-SONG

Little brook! Little brook!

You have such a happy look —

Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and curve and crook —

And your ripples, one and one,

Reach each other's hands and run

Like laughing little children in the sun!

Little brook, sing to me:

Sing about a bumblebee

That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled mumblingly,

Because he wet the film

Of his wings, and had to swim,

While the water-bugs raced round and laughed at him!

Little brook-sing a song

Of a leaf that sailed along

Down the golden-braided centre of your current swift and strong,

And a dragon-fly that lit

On the tilting rim of it,

And rode away and was n't scared a bit.

And sing — how oft in glee

Came a truant boy like me,

Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting melody,

Till the gurgle and refrain

Of your music in his brain

Wrought a happiness as keen to him as pain.

Little brook-laugh and leap!

Do not let the dreamer weep:

Sing him all the songs of summer till he sink in softest sleep;

And then sing soft and low

Through his dreams of long ago —

Sing back to him the rest he used to know!