Classic Poem

Freshly, gaily, the rivulet flows
Beside its emerald bank
Each silver bubble in beauty goes
Adown the stream & briefly glows
Till it reach the broad flags & the alders dank.
Shepherds, who love the lay
Of untaught bards in oaken shades
Brighteyed Apollos of the forest glades
Hither, hither, turn your way.
Come to the grassy border of the brook
Here where the ragged hawthorn dips
His prickly buds of perfume in the wave
And thence again a costly fragrance sips
Drinking with each balmy floweret's lips
Pure from the Naiad's welling urn
While overhead the embowering elms
Bow their broad branches & keep out the day.
Hither, hither, turn your way.