IT 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 up 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 mused 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 though the wise Have said that I was indolent, and they Who taught me have reproved me that I play'd The truant in the leafy month of June, I deem it true philosophy in him Whose path is in the rude and busy world, To loiter with these wayside comforters. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JOHANNA PEDERSEN by KAREN SWENSON BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT by GEORGE GORDON BYRON DOUGLASS by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR WHERE THE PICNIC WAS by THOMAS HARDY A SONG TO MITHRAS by RUDYARD KIPLING COMEDY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH |