| |
| O BROWN brook, O blithe brook, what will you say to me | |
| If I take off my heavy shoon and wade you childishly? | |
| |
| O take them off, and come to me. | |
| You shall not fall. Step merrily! | |
| |
| But, cool brook, but, quick brook, and what if I should float | 5 |
| White-bodied in your pleasant pool, your bubbles at my throat? | |
| |
| If you are but a mortal maid, | |
| Then I shall make you half afraid. | |
| The water shall be dim and deep, | |
| And silver fish shall lunge and leap | 10 |
| About you, coward mortal thing. | |
| But if you come desiring | |
| To win once more your naiadhood, | |
| How you shall laugh and find me good— | |
| My golden surfaces, my glooms, | 15 |
| My secret grottoes’ dripping rooms, | |
| My depths of warm wet emerald, | |
| My mosses floating fold on fold! | |
| And where I take the rocky leap | |
| Like wild white water shall you sweep; | 20 |
| Like wild white water shall you cry, | |
| Trembling and turning to the sky, | |
| While all the thousand-fringèd trees | |
| Glimmer and glisten through the breeze. | |
| I bid you come! Too long, too long, | 25 |
| You have forgot my undersong. | |
| And this perchance you never knew: | |
| E’en I, the brook, have need of you. | |
| My naiads faded long ago,— | |
| My little nymphs, that to and fro | 30 |
| Within my waters sunnily | |
| Made small white flames of tinkling glee. | |
| I have been lonesome, lonesome; yea, | |
| E’en I, the brook, until this day. | |
| Cast off your shoon; ah, come to me, | 35 |
| And I will love you lingeringly! | |
| |
| O wild brook, O wise brook, I cannot come, alas! | |
| I am but mortal as the leaves that flicker, float, and pass. | |
| My body is not used to you; my breath is fluttering sore; | |
| You clasp me round too icily. Ah, let me go once more! | 40 |
| Would God I were a naiad-thing whereon Pan’s music blew; | |
| But woe is me! you pagan brook, I cannot stay with you! | |
| |
