Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/313

 THE RIVULET 303

��THE RIVULET.

How merrily the streamlet flows,

Light prattling at my feet ! Now in a double track it goes,

And now its waters meet ; So, changing oft from side to side, Its floods now mingle, now divide.

To a deep river grown at last.

Its currents part no more. But, blent in one, go journeying fast

To swell old ocean's roar. So, did I deem, love's growing strength Might of us two make one at length —

That we together, side by side.

Might tread with equal pace. Each other's joys and griefs divide ;

Till, having run life's race. Commingling in Death's ocean wave, We both might sleep in the same grave.

But, no ! our currents, sundered long,

Flow on by different ways ; Thine to the east runs swift and strong.

While mine far westward strays. Each hies to reach a different main, Nor more on earth shall meet again.

Farewell, till from Time's tides we mount

Exhaled to upper air. Like streams which thus at their first fount

Their wasted strength repair. And, born anew in vernal showers, Meet once again in fields of flowers !

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