University of Virginia Library

Dear Stream! upon thy grassy brink
I often am constrained to think
That thou must so enamoured be
Of thine own pensive melody,
It is a wonder that some day
Thou dost not thy soft current stay,
And listen in a green recess
Unto the sudden silentness,
Which would be in the widowed air,
Were thy sweet voice no longer there.
How dull would all the meadows look
Bereaved of their own tinkling brook!
The fringing birchtrees that beat time
With tendrils dipping to the chime,
How sad would they be and forlorn,
Were there no breath, of murmur born,
To agitate with cool delight
Their moistened tresses day and night!
In truth that pleasant shady sadness
Would all its meek reserve of gladness,
Like a mute mourner, soon forswear,
Were there no choral waters there
With changeful note to suit a tale
To all who pass along the vale.
I do believe the very bees
Would quit the roadside linden trees,
When summer afternoons are long,
Didst thou not wile them with thy song
To keep up in the well-pleased air
A drowsy emulation there.
Indeed, sweet Brook! we cannot part
With thee; for to the vale thou art,
To grieve, to comfort, to rejoice,
An altogether needful voice.

And yet, dear Stream! I wonder much
A deep desire doth never touch
Thy waterbreaks awhile to stay,
Self-gathered in yon mossy bay,
Awhile in quiet depths to glisten,
Awhile the distant sounds to listen
Of thine own gushings far above,
Which like the wooing of a dove,
That penetrates the breezeless wood,
The breath upon thy sylvan flood
Might waft into thy curious ear,
Confusing sweetly far with near.

And better still if from on high
There came no kindred melody;
For then it were a joy to know
What would be, didst thou cease to flow;
And it were sweet for thee to measure
The fulness of the daily treasure
Which thou art to this vale always,
Blythe Chanter of a hundred lays!
So kindly hearts might love to see
How bare a place the world would be,
Bereaved of all the lustre won
From what hath been or may be done
Through faith, through love, self-sacrifice,
And our domestic charities,
Which, as we waken every morn,
Remind us life may yet be borne.
Ah! Rothay! now on thee doth wait
For evermore a poet's fate,
A captive, bound both eye and ear,
In his own sweetness prisoner,
To whom his crafty melody
Is no such power of simple glee
As unto others it may seem,
Who lie and listen by the stream
Of song, which flows in many a fall
Of thought and language musical.

Then mightest thou begin once more
A deeper strain than heretofore,
Cheered—not by knowing that thou art
A power with which we cannot part,
Nor any other conscious pride
Unmeet for such fair river-side—
But by the buoyant powers which rise
With something of a meek surprise,
When partial self-restraint hath given
To common joys the bliss of Heaven.
For when sequestered from sweet thought
By weary cares, we have been brought
With thirsty heart and eager want
Once more unto our pensive haunt,
It seems like thee, my household River,
Brighter and lovelier far than ever,
With fresh dimensions of true beauty,
Seen in relief against hard duty.

O joyous art thou, festal Earth!
For every month with some new birth
Of glory waits on thee: there is
A beating pulse of truest bliss
Deep in the black and glossy lake,
The yew-crowned steep, the hazel brake:
A golden light of gladness quivers
Submersed in the transparent rivers;
And there are ministers and powers
Among the still or beckoning flowers;
The ship-like clouds, which overwhelm
The azure sky, have at their helm
An inward love to steer them right:
Clear visitations of delight
Thrill through the lone and swampy ground,
With sight at unison with sound:
The creatures in their perfect motions,
The tides and currents of the oceans,
The growing trees,—for ever move
By most transcendent law of love
And blameless will, yet have no power
Of self-restraint—not for an hour!—
And therefore, blessèd Earth! it is,
One moment of pure mortal bliss,
Aye or pure mortal grief, is worth
A hundred years of thy mute mirth,
A hundred years of moons that range
'Twixt sameness beautiful and change
Which is not change, but to man's eye
His inward mutability
Reflected in the earth and sky.
No love for its own sake can we
Bestow on thy tranquillity;
But, when received into the strife
Of feeling heart or pensive life,
Our spirit sheds on thee a dew
Which doth almost create thee new;
And then, O Earth! how dear thou art,
How sacred to each tender heart!

Thou knowest not the wondrous blending
Of bright and dark in the ascending
Scale of life, the never ending
Weaving of all times and places,
And charities and wrongs and graces,
Of love and sorrow, morn and even,
Youth and age, and earth and heaven.
No joy is realized until
By power of the harmonious will
And the submissive reason, it
Will, all unquestioning, admit
Stern duty with a yielding grace
To be enthroned upon its place;
And hath been taught to come and go,
As task and leisure ebb and flow,
And it for duty's coming waits
A humble portress at the gates.

Thou canst not know, dear Stream! the joy,
Without misgiving or alloy,
Which abstinence and self-control
Spread like a sunrise, o'er the soul.
Thou canst not know what flight is given,
Unto the very doors of heaven,
To hearts which from self-sacrifice,
Like birds from lowly places, rise,
Who soar the highest when their mirth
Is humblest on the lowly earth.

Thy song cheers not thyself, dear River!
Because it is a song for ever;
It is thyself, thy life, and not
A gift, a separable lot,
Of whose deep tenderness and beauty
Thou canst by self-restraint and duty
Win sweet returns or augmentations;
It hath no daily new creations—
Fresh births which come from sapient glee,
From wisdom, from simplicity,
When mortal joys themselves refrain
For virtue's sake, then flow again.

So are we made; unquiet pleasure,
Which the calm spirit cannot measure,
Endureth not, and is no treasure.
The mirth we cannot put away
Is but a mirth on its first day.
The joy which we can not restrain
Is but a liberty from pain.
Where self and pleasure are but one,
That soul is morally undone!