Not Understood and Other Poems/The Brooklet in the Glen

by Thomas Bracken

 

THE BROOKLET IN THE GLEN.

 

ITS mellow song
            The whole night long
  Is borne around the tranquil vale,
            And through the day
            In cheerful lay
  It chants a never ending tale
The hist’ry of its life and birth,
  The secrets of the valley, when
From the effusive pores of earth,
  God called it down the glen.

        The Tui’s trill,
          Upon the hill,
Is answered by a thousand notes,
          Till one grand swell
          From nook and dell
Upon the morning ether floats;
But in a voice subdued and low,
  Which tells of things beyond our ken,
The brooklet’s gentle accents flow,
  Meandering down the glen.

          Old ocean hoarse,
          Ejects with force
His foaming tongue to lap the beach;
          But all in vain
          He tries to gain
  The upland prize he cannot reach
True reflex of the passions wild
  Which stir the restless souls of men—
The brooklet is a careless child
  That prattles down the glen.

          And as it flows
          It larger grows,
Until it merges in the sea;
          And thus the boy
          From childish joy
  Runs into man’s anxiety;
The fairy towers we loved to raise,
  Are swallowed in life’s whirlpool then—
There’s food for thought in all thy lays,
  Sweet brooklet in the glen.

 

 

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