An Early Love

It was a little pebbled run,
    That, sauntering down the woody glen,
    Far from the daily haunts of men,
Stole sudden glimpses of the sun.

If any breeze the foliage stirred,
    In slipped a sunbeam, and out came
    A little flash of fluttering flame,
Like swift wings of a humming-bird.

A liquid gurgle, low and sweet,
    Made fairy music night and day;
    The little runnel lived to play,
And laughed a living love to meet.

The rusted pebbles of its bed
    A shimmering, golden ripple gave –
    The picture of each wrinkled wave
That danced and twittered overhead.

Below its banks, in blindfold search,
    It groped about the twisted root
    Of oak and beach, and kissed the foot
And snowy ankles of the birch;

Or gliding round some mossy cape
    Into a still, unwrinkled urn,
    It held a mirror for the fern
To see her own unrivalled shape.

The tasselled aider stooped and drank
    The cool spring-fullness of its wave;
    The willow’s furry catkins gave
A fringe of silver to its bank.

Green cresses in each sunny nook
    Drew the white feet of laughing maids
    In those sweet, solitary glades,
To tempt the kisses of the brook.

And golden cowslips flecked the green,
    From the bright sun-god’s dripping urn,
Shed down to grace his fair return,
And lure us to the sylvan scene.

With short wing-beats the bobolink
    Shook off a twinkling shower of glee, –
    The ripple’s glimmer changed to free,
Glad music for the ear to drink!

The honest crow, defamed by law,
    High housed upon the thickest oak,
    Sent down his melancholy croak,
Responsive to the stripling’s “caw!”

Along the runnel’s edge a joust
    Of merry squirrels, red and gray,
    Would make untiring holiday
For him who never wronged their trust.

So memory paints the pebbled run
    That gave to childhood’s roving feet
    The rapture of a lone retreat,
Long lost, yet bright in memory’s sun.