One summer morn, while yet the thrilling lay, Of the dew-loving lark was full and strong, Trampling the wild flowers in my careless way, Up the steep mountain-side I strode along —
My only guide, a brook whose joyous song, Seemed like a boy's light-hearted roundelay, As down it rushed, the leafy bowers among, Scattering o'er bud and bloom its pearly spray —
A beauteous semblance of life's opening day. And looking back to that all-gladdening morn, When I was free and sportive as the stream — When roses blushed with no suspected thorn,
And fancy's sunlight gilded every dream — While hope yet shed its sweet delusive beam, And disappointment still delayed to warn — With fond regret, I still pursued the theme —
With clambering step still up the steep was borne, Too sad to smile, too pleased perchance to mourn. And now I stood beside that rivulet's spring, That came unbidden with a bubbling bound —
And stealing forth, a gentle trembling thing, It seemed an infant fearing all around — Yet clinging to its mother's breast — the ground. But soon it bolder grew, and with a wing
It went: its carol was a joyous sound, Making the silent woods responsive ring, And the far forest-echoes, sighing, sing. And now I stood upon the mountain's height —
Like a wide map, the landscape lay unrolled — There could I trace that rivulet's path of light, From the steep mountain to the sea of gold; Now leaping o'er the rocks like chamois bold,—
Now like a crouching hare concealed from sight,— Now hid beneath the willow's bowering fold, As if they sought to stay its arrowy flight, Then give it forth again more swift and bright.
‘ Twas changeful — beautiful; now dark, now fair — A tale of life, from childhood to the tomb — Its birth-place near the skies, in mountain air, Where wild flowers throw around their sweet perfume,
Like the blest thoughts that often brightly bloom, At home, beneath a mother's culturing care — Its form now hid in shadows, such as gloom Our downward way — its grave in ocean, where
It mingles with the wave — a dweller there! And though that stream be hidden from the view, ‘ Tis yet preserved‘ neath ocean's briny crest: That wide eternity of waves is true —
And as the planets anchored in their rest, The sparkling streamlet lives; and while unblest, The land-wave stagnant lingers — there the blue Tide holds the river stainless in its breast —
An image still of life, that sparkles through The starry deep of heaven, for ever new.
Cookies on Poetry Cove