Little brook! Little brook! <br />You have such a happy look-- <br />Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and <br />curve and crook-- <br />And your ripples, one and one, <br />Reach each other's hands and run <br />Like laughing little children in the sun! <br /> <br />Little brook, sing to me: <br />Sing about a bumblebee <br />That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled <br />mumblingly, <br />Because he wet the film <br />Of his wings, and had to swim, <br />While the water-bugs raced round and <br />laughed at him! <br /> <br />Little brook-sing a song <br />Of a leaf that sailed along <br />Down the golden-braided centre of your current <br />swift and strong, <br />And a dragon-fly that lit <br />On the tilting rim of it, <br />And rode away and wasn't scared a bit. <br /> <br />And sing--how oft in glee <br />Came a truant boy like me, <br />Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting <br />melody, <br />Till the gurgle and refrain <br />Of your music in his brain <br />Wrought a happiness as keen to him <br />as pain. <br /> <br />Little brook-laugh and leap! <br />Do not let the dreamer weep: <br />Sing him all the songs of summer till he sink in <br />softest sleep; <br />And then sing soft and low <br />Through his dreams of long ago-- <br />Sing back to him the rest he used to <br />know!<br /><br />James Whitcomb Riley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-brook-song/
