Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE BROOK-SONG, by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE BROOK-SONG, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Little brook! Little brook!
Last Line: Sing back to him the rest he used to know!
Alternate Author Name(s): Johnson Of Boone, Benj. F.
Subject(s): Brooks; Children; Singing & Singers; Streams; Creeks; Childhood


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 bumblebee
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 center 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 sink 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!





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