Poetry Archives

  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 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!