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 centre of your current swift and strong,
And a dragon-fly that lit
On the tilting rim of it,
And rode away and was n'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!