Happy life is in them all,
Creatures innocent and small;
Little birds come down to drink,
Fearless of their leafy brink;
Noble trees beside them grow,
Glooming them with branches low;
And between the sunshine glancing
In their little waves is dancing.
Little streams have flowers a many,
Beautiful and fair as any;
Typha strong, and green bur-reed,
Willow-herb, with cotton-seed ;
Arrow-head, with eye of jet,
And the water-violet.
There the flowering rush you meet,
And the plumy meadow sweet;
And in places deep and stilly,
Marble-like, the water-lily.
Little streams, their voices cheery,
Sound forth welcomes to the weary;
Flowing on from day to day,
Without stint and without stay;
Here, upon their flowery bank,
In the old time pilgrims drank ;
Here have seen, as now, pass by,
King-fisher, and dragon-fly;
Those bright things that have their dwelling,
Where the little streams are welling.
Down in valleys green and lowly,
Murmuring not and gliding slowly,
Up in mountain-hollows wild,
Fretting like a peevish child;
Through the hamlet, where all day
In their waves the children play;
Running west, or running east,
Doing good to man and beast-
Always giving, weary never,
Little streams, I love you ever.
FROM THE GREEK OF ARISTOPHANES.
Hold your tongues, you tuneful creatures
Frogs. Cease with your profane entreaties,
All in vain forever stirring;
Silence is against our natures.
With the vernal heat reviving,
Our aquatic crew repair
From their periodic sleep,
In the dark and chilly deep,
To the cheerful upper air;
Then we frolic here and there,
All amid the meadows fair;
Shady plants of asphodel,
Are the lodges where we dwell,
Chanting in the leafy bowers,
All the livelong summer hours,
Till the sudden, gusty showers
Send us headlong, helter-skelter,
To the pool to seek for shelter;
Meager, eager, leaping, lunging,
From the sedgy wharfage plunging
To the tranquil depth below,
Then we muster all a-row,
Where, secure from toil and trouble,
With a tuneful bubble-bubble,
Our symphonious accents flow.
Brikake-kesh, koàsh, koàsh.
Translation of J. II. FRERE.
THE RIVULETS.
Go up and mark the new-born rill,
Just trickling from its mossy bed;
Streaking the heath-clad hill
With a bright emerald thread.
Canst thou her bold career foretell,
What rocks she shall o'erleap or rend,
How far in ocean's swell,
Her freshening billows send?
Fair dweller by the dusty way,
Bright saint within a mossy shrine,
The tribute of a heart to-day,
Weary and worn, is thine.
The earliest blossoms of the year,
The sweet-brier and the violet,
The pious hand of spring has here
Upon thy altar set.
And not alone to thee is given
The homage of the pilgrim's knee; But oft the sweetest birds of heaven Glide down and sing to thee.
Here daily from his beechen cell,
The hermit squirrel steals to drink,
And flocks which cluster to their bell,
Recline along thy brink.
And here the wagoner blocks his wheels,
To quaff the cool and generous boon;
Here from the sultry harvest fields
The reapers rest at noon.
And oft the beggar masked with tan,
In rusty garments gray with dust, Here sits and dips his little can,
And breaks his scanty crust.
And lulled beside thy whispering stream,
Oft drops to slumber unawares,
And sees the angel of his dream
Upon celestial stairs.
Dear dweller by the dusty way,
Thou saint within a mossy shrine,
The tribute of a heart to day,
Weary and worn, is thine!
Pleasant it was to view the sea-gulls strive
Against the storm, or in the ocean dive,
With eager scream, or when they dropping gave
Their closing wings to sail upon the wave;
Then as the winds and waters raged around,
And breaking billows mix'd their deafening sound,
They on the rolling deep securely hung,
And calmly rode the restless waves among.
Nor pleas'd it less around me to behold,
Far up the beach the yesty sea-foam roll'd;
Or from the shore upborne, to see on high
Its frothy flakes in wild confusion fly;
While the salt spray, that clashing billows form,
Gave to the taste a feeling of the storm.
GEORGE CRABBE, 1754-1882.
Into the sunshine,
Full of light,
Leaping and flashing,
From morn till night.
Into the moonlight,
Whiter than snow,
Waving so flower-like,
When the winds blow!
Into the starlight,
Rushing in spray,
Happy at midnight-
Happy by day!
Ever in motion,
Blithesome and cheery,
Still climbing heavenward,
Never aweary;
Glad of all weathers,
Still seeming best,
Upward or downward,
Motion thy rest;
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