Page:Field Poems of Childhood.djvu/66



OU'RE not so big as you were then,

O little brook!—

I mean those hazy summers when

We boys roamed, full of awe, beside

Your noisy, foaming, tumbling tide,

And wondered if it could be true

That there were bigger brooks than you,

O mighty brook, O peerless brook!

All up and down this reedy place

Where lives the brook,

We angled for the furtive dace;

The redwing-blackbird did his best

To make us think he'd build his nest

Hard by the stream, when, like as not,

He'd hung it in a secret spot

Far from the brook, the telltale brook!

And often, when the noontime heat

Parboiled the brook,

We'd draw our boots and swing our feet