Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West! <br />How many various-fated years have passed, <br />What happy and what mournful hours, since last <br />I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, <br />Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed <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, veined with various dyes, <br />Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way, <br />Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled <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/to-the-river-otter/
