Page:Poems Cook.djvu/180

I had heard of full many a river of fame,
With its wide rolling flood, and its classical name;
But the Thames of Old England, the Tiber of Rome,
Could not peer with the mill-streamlet close to my home.

Full well I remember the gravelly spot,
Where I slyly repair'd though I knew I ought not;
Where I stood with my handful of pebbles to make.
That formation of fancy, a duck and a drake.

How severe was the scolding, how heavy the threat,
When my pinafore hung on me dirty and wet;
How heedlessly silent I stood to be told.
Of the danger of drowning, the risk of a cold!

"Now mark!" cried a mother, "the mischief done there.
Is unbearable—go to that stream if you dare!"
But I sped to that stream like a frolicsome colt,
For I knew that her thunder-cloud carried no holt.

Though puzzled with longitude, adverb and noun,
Till my forehead was sunk in a studious frown;
Yet that stream was a Lethe that swept from my soul.
The grammar, the globes, and the tutor's control.

I wonder if still the young anglers begin,
As I did, with willow-wand, packthread, and pin;
When I threw in my line, with expectancy high.
As to perch in my basket, and eels in a pie:

When I watched every bubble that broke on a weed,
Yet found I caught nothing but lily and reed;
Till time and discernment began to instil
The manoeuvres of Walton with infinite skill.

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