  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 bumble bee, 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 wasn’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 sinks 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! —James Whitcomb Riley. By permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Copyright, 1901. |
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