| |
| THIS little rill, that from the springs | |
| Of yonder grove its current brings, | |
| Plays on the slope awhile, and then | |
| Goes prattling into groves again, | |
| Oft to its warbling waters drew | 5 |
| My little feet, when life was new. | |
| When woods in early green were dressed, | |
| And from the chambers of the west | |
| The warmer breezes, travelling out, | |
| Breathed the new scent of flowers about, | 10 |
| My truant steps from home would stray, | |
| Upon its grassy side to play, | |
| List the brown thrasher’s vernal hymn, | |
| And crop the violet on its brim, | |
| With blooming cheek and open brow, | 15 |
| As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou. | |
| |
| And when the days of boyhood came, | |
| And I had grown in love with fame, | |
| Duly I sought thy banks, and tried | |
| My first rude numbers by thy side. | 20 |
| Words cannot tell how bright and gay | |
| The scenes of life before me lay. | |
| Then glorious hopes, that now to speak | |
| Would bring the blood into my cheek, | |
| Passed o’er me; and I wrote, on high, | 25 |
| A name I deemed should never die. | |
| |
| Years change thee not. Upon yon hill | |
| The tall old maples, verdant still, | |
| Yet tell, in grandeur of decay, | |
| How swift the years have passed away, | 30 |
| Since first, a child, and half afraid, | |
| I wandered in the forest shade. | |
| Thou, ever joyous rivulet, | |
| Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet; | |
| And sporting with the sands that pave | 35 |
| The winding of thy silver wave, | |
| And dancing to thy own wild chime, | |
| Thou laughest at the lapse of time. | |
| The same sweet sounds are in my ear | |
| My early childhood loved to hear; | 40 |
| As pure thy limpid waters run; | |
| As bright they sparkle to the sun; | |
| As fresh and thick the bending ranks | |
| Of herbs that line thy oozy banks; | |
| The violet there, in soft May dew, | 45 |
| Comes up, as modest and as blue; | |
| As green amid thy current’s stress, | |
| Floats the scarce-rooted watercress: | |
| And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen, | |
| Still chirps as merrily as then. | 50 |
| |
| Thou changest not,—but I am changed, | |
| Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged; | |
| And the grave stranger, come to see | |
| The play-place of his infancy, | |
| Has scarce a single trace of him | 55 |
| Who sported once upon thy brim. | |
| The visions of my youth are past,— | |
| Too bright, too beautiful to last. | |
| I ’ve tried the world,—it wears no more | |
| The coloring of romance it wore. | 60 |
| Yet well has Nature kept the truth | |
| She promised in my earliest youth. | |
| The radiant beauty shed abroad | |
| On all the glorious works of God, | |
| Shows freshly, to my sobered eye, | 65 |
| Each charm it wore in days gone by. | |
| |
| A few brief years shall pass away, | |
| And I, all trembling, weak, and gray, | |
| Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold | |
| My ashes in the embracing mould | 70 |
| (If haply the dark will of fate | |
| Indulge my life so long a date), | |
| May come for the last time to look | |
| Upon my childhood’s favorite brook. | |
| Then dimly on my eye shall gleam | 75 |
| The sparkle of thy dancing stream; | |
| And faintly on my ear shall fall | |
| Thy prattling current’s merry call; | |
| Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright | |
| As when thou met’st my infant sight. | 80 |
| |
| And I shall sleep—and on thy side, | |
| As ages after ages glide, | |
| Children their early sports shall try, | |
| And pass to hoary age and die. | |
| But thou, unchanged from year to year, | 85 |
| Gayly shalt play and glitter here; | |
| Amid young flowers and tender grass | |
| Thy endless infancy shalt pass; | |
| And, singing down thy narrow glen, | |
| Shalt mock the fading race of men. | 90 |
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