Page:Field Poems of Childhood.djvu/198



LOOKED in the brook and saw a face—

Heigh-ho, but a child was I!

There were rushes and willows in that place,

And they clutched at the brook as the brook ran by;

And the brook it ran its own sweet way,

As a child doth run in heedless play,

And as it ran I heard it say:

"Hasten with me

To the roistering sea

That is wroth with the flame of the morning sky!"

I look in the brook and see a face—

Heigh-ho, but the years go by!

The rushes are dead in the old-time place,

And the willows I knew when a child was I.

And the brook it seemeth to me to say,

As ever it stealeth on its way—

Solemnly now, and not in play: