free-verse33 lines
Roaring Brook: - Cheshire, Con.
by Nathaniel Parker WillisIt was a mountain stream that with the leap
Of its impatient waters had worn out
A channel in the rock, and wash'd away
The earth that had upheld the tall old trees,
Till it was darken'd with the shadowy arch
Of the o'er-leaning branches. Here and there
It loiter'd in a broad and limpid pool
That circled round demurely, and anon
Sprung violently over where the rock
Fell suddenly, and bore its bubbles on,
Till they were broken by the hanging moss,
As anger with a gentle word grows calm.
In spring-time, when the snows were coming down,
And in the flooding of the Autumn rains,
No foot might enter there - but in the hot
And thirsty summer, when the fountains slept,
You could go its channel in the shade,
To the far sources, with a brow as cool
As in the grotto of the anchorite.
Here when an idle student have I come,
And in a hollow of the rock lain down
And mus'd until the eventide, or read
Some fine old Poet till my nook became
A haunt of faery, or the busy flow
Of water to my spell-bewilder'd ear
Seem'd like the din of some gay tournament.
Pleasant have been such hours, and tho' the wise
Have said that I was indolent, and they
Who taught me have reprov'd me that I play'd
The truant in the leafy month of June,
I deem it true philosophy in him
Whose spirit must be temper'd of the world,
To loiter with these wayside comforters.