Classic Poem

Oh , sweet and still around the hill
Thy silver waters, Brook, are creeping;
Beneath the hill, as sweet and still,
Thy weary Friend lies sleeping:
A laurel leaf is in his hair,
His eyes are closed to human seeming,
And surely he hath dreams most fair,
If he, indeed, be dreaming.

O Brook! he smiled, a happy child,
Upon thy banks, and loved thy crying,
And, as time flew, thy murmur grew
A trouble purifying;
Till, last, thy laurel leaf he took,
Dream-eyed and tearful, like a woman,
And turned thy haunting cry, O Brook!
To speech divine and human.

O Brook! in song full sweet and strong,
He sang of thee he loved so dearly;
Then softly creep around his sleep,
And murmur to him cheerly;
For though he knows no fret or fear,
Though life no more slips strangely through him,
Yet he may rest more sound to hear
His friend so close unto him.

And when at last the sleepers cast
Their swathes aside, and, wondering, waken,
Let thy Friend be full tenderly
In silvern arms uptaken.
Him be it then thy task to bear
Up to the Footstool, softly flowing, —
Smiles on his eyes, and in his hair
Thy leaf of laurel blowing!