Dear native Brook! wild Streamlet of the West! <br />How many various-fated years have past, <br />What happy and what mournful hours, since last <br />I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast, <br />Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest <br />Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes <br />I never shut amid the sunny ray, <br />But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, <br />Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey, <br />And bedded sand that vein'd with various dyes <br />Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way, <br />Visions of Childhood! oft have ye beguil'd <br />Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs: <br />Ah! that once more I were a careless Child!<br /><br />Samuel Taylor Coleridge<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-to-the-river-otter/
