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 by 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 gold-hearted center 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 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!