Classic Poem

Mountain brook, wild mountain brook,
Roaring through this rocky nook,
Tell me why you twist and toss
On from couch to couch of moss?
Tell me why your spirit yearns,
Heedless of caressing ferns,
And the laurel's pleading look
As she begs you linger, brook?

Hear the murmur of the pines,
Heed the kiss of columbines:
How they call to you to stay
Ere you leap your headlong way!
Yet in foaming haste you go,
Far from parent peaks of snow,
Leaping cream-white cascades down,
Speeding to yon lowland town.

Pause, O, pause before you leap
Down this vine-entangled steep!
Linger here with peaks of snow
Flushed with morn's carnation glow;
Linger here in hemlock bowers,
Play with rhododendron flowers;
Linger here in youth and joy,
Like a bonny blithesome boy!

In that soiled and sinful town
Crystal waves are smirched with brown;
Soon your airy white attire
Draggles in the murky mire;
You shall curdle green with scum,
And your happy voice grow dumb.
Ere you leap, I beg you look,
Pure and peerless mountain brook!

But, you answer, “I must go
Far through panting plains below;
I must rescue fainting wheat
Drooping in the brazen heat;
I must bear to parching corn
Vigor of this mountain morn;
I must bring from melting snows
Blood for blushes on the rose.

“I must come to aid of men
In yon far-off huddled den;
Rush where huts and hovels scowl
Over alleys close and foul.
I must make the factory hum,
Though it curdle me with scum.
I must cleanse the sink and sewer
Though they make myself impure.”

Mountain brook, wild mountain brook,
Heaven had planned the course you took.
Though the blossom soon must fade,
Though the leaf soon hangs decayed;
Though the star must sink in gloom,
Though I soon shall seek the tomb;—
Let us go with gladsome look,
God's hand leading, mountain brook.