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I. DEAR streamlet, tripping down thy devious course, | |
| Or lulled in smoothest pools of sombre hue, | |
| Or breaking over stones with murmurs hoarse, | |
| To thee one grateful strain is surely due | |
| From me, the poet of thy native wolds, | 5 |
| Now that the sky is golden in the west, | |
| And distant flocks are bleating from their folds, | |
| And the pale eve-star lifts her sparkling crest. | |
| Would it were thus with thee, when summer suns | |
| Shed their strong heats, and over field and hill | 10 |
| Swims the faint air, and all the cattle shuns | |
| The brighter slopes; but then thy scanty rill | |
| Has dwindled to a thread, and, creeping through | |
| The tangled herbage, shelters from the view. | |
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II. Nor is a thankful strain from me not due | 15 |
| To you, ye company of cherished flowers, | |
| That look upon, throughout the weary hours, | |
| My study and my prison; for from you | |
| I learn that Nature to her charge is true; | |
| That she, who clothes with bloom your lavish bowers | 20 |
| In kindlier climates, can, in skies like ours, | |
| Paint your soft petals with their native hue. | |
| And thence I learn that this poetic soul, | |
| That fain would revel in the warmth and light | |
| Of heavenly beauty, yet in strict control | 25 |
| Dwelling, and chilly realms of damp and blight, | |
| Must not the more its proper task forego; | |
| But in the dreariest clime its blossoms show. | |
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