English poem
The Brook Song
by John C. Saul
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 bumble bee, 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 wasn’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 sinks 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!
--JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
_By permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Copyright, 1901._