Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
IV. Inland Waters: HighlandsThe Birch Stream
Anna Boynton Averill (18431915)A
Where the wild river rushes down,
And thunders hoarsely all day long,
I think of thee, my hermit stream,
Low singing in thy summer dream
Thine idle, sweet, old, tranquil song.
Looms through thy low, long, leafy aisle;
Eastward, Olamon’s summit shines;
And I upon thy grassy shore,
The dreamful, happy child of yore,
Worship before mine olden shrines.
Is sweetly broken by the thrush,
Whose clear bell rings and dies away
Beside thy banks, in coverts deep,
Where nodding buds of orchis sleep
In dusk, and dream not it is day.
Her golden-freighted, tented boats
In thy cool coves of softened gloom,
O’ershadowed by the whispering reed,
And purple plumes of pickerel-weed,
And meadow-sweet in tangled bloom.
Beneath thy glimmering amber rocks,
If but a zephyr stirs the brake;
The silent swallow swoops, a flash
Of light, and leaves, with dainty plash,
A ring of ripples in her wake.
The level fields in languor swim,
Their stubble-grasses brown as dust;
And all along the upland lanes,
Where shadeless noon oppressive reigns,
Dead roses wear their crowns of rust.
The fierce sun wooes with ardent breath,
But cannot win thy sylvan heart.
Only the child who loves thee long,
With faithful worship pure and strong,
Can know how dear and sweet thou art.
So love I yet, though leagues may lie
Between us, and the years divide;
A breath of coolness, dawn, and dew,
A joy forever fresh and true,
Thy memory doth with me abide.