Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whither? (From The German Of Müller)

I heard a brooklet gushing
From its rocky fountain near,
Down into the valley rushing,
So fresh and wondrous clear.

I know not what came o'er me,
Nor who the counsel gave;
But I must hasten downward,
All with my pilgrim-stave;

Downward, and ever farther,
And ever the brook beside;
And ever fresher murmured,
And ever clearer, the tide.

Is this the way I was going?
Whither, O brooklet, say I
Thou hast, with thy soft murmur,
Murmured my senses away.

What do I say of a murmur?
That can no murmur be;
'Tis the water-nymphs, that are singing
Their roundelays under me.

Let them sing, my friend, let them murmur,
And wander merrily near;
The wheels of a mill are going
In every brooklet clear.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Boy And The Brook. (Armenian Popular Song, From The Prose Version Of Alishan)

Down from yon distant mountain height
The brooklet flows through the village street;
A boy comes forth to wash his hands,
Washing, yes washing, there he stands,
In the water cool and sweet.

Brook, from what mountain dost thou come,
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I come from yon mountain high and cold,
Where lieth the new snow on the old,
And melts in the summer heat.

Brook, to what river dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the river there below
Where in bunches the violets grow,
And sun and shadow meet.

Brook, to what garden dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the garden in the vale
Where all night long the nightingale
Her love-song doth repeat.

Brook, to what fountain dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the fountain at whose brink
The maid that loves thee comes to drink,
And whenever she looks therein,
I rise to meet her, and kiss her chin,
And my joy is then complete.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Brook And The Wave. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Third)

The brooklet came from the mountain,
As sang the bard of old,
Running with feet of silver
Over the sands of gold!

Far away in the briny ocean
There rolled a turbulent wave,
Now singing along the sea-beach,
Now howling along the cave.

And the brooklet has found the billow,
Though they flowed so far apart,
And has filled with its freshness and sweetness
That turbulent, bitter heart!

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On A Beautiful Spring,

FORMING A COLD BATH, AT COOMBE, NEAR DONHEAD, BELONGING TO MY BROTHER,
CHAS. BOWLES, ESQ.

Fountain, that sparklest through the shady place,
Making a soft, sad murmur o'er the stones
That strew thy lucid way! Oh, if some guest
Should haply wander near, with slow disease
Smitten, may thy cold springs the rose of health
Bring back, and the quick lustre to his eye!
The ancient oaks that on thy margin wave,
The song of birds, and through the rocky cave
The clear stream gushing, their according sounds
Should mingle, and, like some strange music, steal
Sadly, yet soothing, o'er his aching breast.
And thou, pale exile from thy native shores,
Here drink,--oh, couldst thou!--as of Lethe's stream!
Nor friends, nor bleeding country, nor the views
Of hills or streams beloved, nor vesper bell,
Heard in the twilight vale, remember more!

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Charles Kingsley

Trehill Well

There stood a low and ivied roof,
As gazing rustics tell,
In times of chivalry and song
'Yclept the holy well.

Above the ivies' branchlets gray
In glistening clusters shone;
While round the base the grass-blades bright
And spiry foxglove sprung.

The brambles clung in graceful bands,
Chequering the old gray stone
With shining leaflets, whose bright face
In autumn's tinting shone.

Around the fountain's eastern base
A babbling brooklet sped,
With sleepy murmur purling soft
Adown its gravelly bed.

Within the cell the filmy ferns
To woo the clear wave bent;
And cushioned mosses to the stone
Their quaint embroidery lent.

The fountain's face lay still as glass-
Save where the streamlet free
Across the basin's gnarled lip
Flowed ever silently.

Above the well a little nook
Once held, as rustics tell,
All garland-decked, an image of
The Lady of the Well.

They tell of tales of mystery,
Of darkling deeds of woe;
But no! such doings might not brook
The holy streamlet's flow.

Oh tell me not of bitter thoughts,
Of melancholy dreams,
By that fair fount whose sunny wall
Basks in the western beams.

When last I saw that little stream,
A form of light there stood,
That seemed like a precious gem,
Beneath that archway rude:

And as I gazed with love and awe
Upon that sylph-like thing,
Methought that airy form must be
The fairy of the spring.


Helston, 1835.

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

To My Brooklet. (From The French Of Ducis)

Thou brooklet, all unknown to song,
Hid in the covert of the wood!
Ah, yes, like thee I fear the throng,
Like thee I love the solitude.

O brooklet, let my sorrows past
Lie all forgotten in their graves,
Till in my thoughts remain at last
Only thy peace, thy flowers, thy waves.

The lily by thy margin waits;--
The nightingale, the marguerite;
In shadow here he meditates
His nest, his love, his music sweet.

Near thee the self-collected soul
Knows naught of error or of crime;
Thy waters, murmuring as they roll,
Transform his musings into rhyme.

Ah, when, on bright autumnal eves,
Pursuing still thy course, shall I
Lisp the soft shudder of the leaves,
And hear the lapwing's plaintive cry?

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Long Lost Love

She wakens;
It has been a decade's sleep.
She hearkens;
It's I to her depths, not cheap.
A lovely brown curl is twisted
By her crooked finger;
If I had only listened,
I could have heard the murmur of her shapely heart;
The murmur of her lips apart;
But in enticement I grow stupid,
And, lanced by some succubus cupid,
Only did tell her I loved her profoundly.
And she shakes that off like a fly, roundly.
And flees off into the night.

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Requiem

For thee the birds shall never sing again,
Nor fresh green leaves come out upon the tree,
The brook shall no more murmur the refrain
For thee.

Thou liest underneath the windswept lea,
Thou dreamest not of pleasure or of pain,
Thou dreadest no to-morrow that shall be.

Deep rest is thine, unbroken by the rain,
Ay, or the thunder. Brother, canst thou see
The tears that night and morning fall in vain
For thee?

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The Broken Ring

To the willows of the brookside
The mill wheel sings to-day--
Sings and weeps,
As the brooklet creeps
Wondering on its way;
And here is the ring _she_ gave me
With love's sweet promise then--
It hath burst apart
Like the trusting heart
That may never be soothed again!

Oh, I would be a minstrel
To wander far and wide,
Weaving in song the merciless wrong
Done by a perjured bride!
Or I would be a soldier,
To seek in the bloody fray
What gifts of fate can compensate
For the pangs I suffer to-day!

Yet may this aching bosom,
By bitter sorrow crushed,
Be still and cold
In the churchyard mould
Ere _thy_ sweet voice be hushed;
So sing, sing on forever,
O wheel of the brookside mill,
For you mind me again
Of the old time when
I felt love's gracious thrill.

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Charles Baudelaire

The Fountain of Blood

A fountain's pulsing sobs--like this my blood
Measures its flowing, so it sometimes seems.
I hear a gentle murmur as it streams;
Where the wound lies I've never understood.

Like water meadows, boulevards are flooded.
Cobblestones, crisscrossed by scarlet rills,
Are islands; creatures come and drink their fill.
Nothing in nature now remains unblooded.

I used to hope that wine could bring me ease,
Could lull asleep my deeply gnawing mind.
I was a fool: the senses clear with wine.

I looked to Love to cure my old disease.
Love led me to a thicket of IVs
Where bristling needles thirsted for each vein.

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God-Seeking

God-seeking thou hast journeyed far and nigh.
On dawn-lit mountain-tops thy soul did yearn
To hear His trailing garments wander by;
And where 'mid thunderous glooms great sunsets burn,
Vainly thou sought'st His shadow on sea and sky;
Or gazing up, at noontide, could'st discern
Only a neutral heaven's indifferent eye
And countenance austerely taciturn.

Yet whom thou soughtest I have found at last;
Neither where tempest dims the world below
Nor where the westering daylight reels aghast
In conflagrations of red overthrow:
But where this virgin brooklet silvers past,
And yellowing either bank the king-cups blow.

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Inscriptions: I: For A Grotto

To me, whom in their lays the shepherds call
Actæa, daughter of the neighbouring stream,
This cave belongs. The fig-tree and the vine,
Which o'er the rocky entrance downward shoot,
Were plac'd by Glycon. He with cowslips pale,
Primrose, and purple lychnis, deck'd the green
Before my threshold, and my shelving walls
With honeysuckle cover'd. Here at noon,
Lull'd by the murmur of my rising fount,
I slumber: here my clustering fruits i tend;
Or from the humid flowers, at break of day,
Fresh garlands weave, and chace from all my bounds
Each thing impure or noxious. Enter-in,
O stranger, undismay'd. nor bat, nor toad
Here lurks: and if thy breast of blameless thoughts
Approve thee, not unwelcome shalt thou tread
My quiet mansion: chiefly, if thy name
Wise Pallas and the immortal muses own.

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Longing

Aching.
Longing.
Museful pondering.
Hopes peak and blossom
like a tender and delicate white rose
perched precariously
on the edge of a mountain peak.
Hopes plummet and swirl
downward
downward
downward
into a rushing
rocky
tumult
of
unsettled
and chaotic
waters.
Hopes spring anew
with vibrancy
and a tender compassion
and fresh promise
and wonder
if they
can begin again
anew?

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The Old Man's Grave

Make it where the winds may sweep
Through the pine boughs soft and deep,
And the murmur of the sea
Come across the orient lea,
And the falling raindrops sing
Gently to his slumbering.

Make it where the meadows wide
Greenly lie on every side,
Harvest fields he reaped and trod,
Westering slopes of clover sod,
Orchard lands where bloom and blow
Trees he planted long ago.

Make it where the starshine dim
May be always close to him,
And the sunrise glory spread
Lavishly around his bed.
And the dewy grasses creep
Tenderly above his sleep.

Since these things to him were dear
Through full many a well-spent year,
It is surely meet their grace
Should be on his resting-place,
And the murmur of the sea
Be his dirge eternally.

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Song of songs

It’s early morning
and the sun hangs like a large orange
Just above the hillocks

Three teenage girls
undress at the clear water
of a Brooklet.

The are shy for others,
but like to bathe together and walk
with bare feet into the rocky little stream.

Everyone of them is still young and pure
and splash and frolic while the sun
shines hotter and brighter.

The water is still cold
and their nipples are hard and black
on their round breasts.

While they wash each other
it sparkles shiny and rows of drops
are on their brown skins

The water runs of in little streams
down arms, stomachs, hips and thighs
and they stand and talk and laugh.

Something quivers in the reeds where is grows in a thicket
deep into the stream and they see
a dark green water monitor going into the water.

They run screaming and stark naked
and try without any clothes, to get direction
to the shacks of the village where they stay.

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Eros

Bright thro' the valley gallops the brooklet;
Over the welkin travels the cloud;
Touch'd by the zephyr, dances the harebell;
Cuckoo sits somewhere, singing so loud;
Two little children, seeing and hearing,
Hand in hand wander, shout, laugh, and sing:
Lo, in their bosoms, wild with the marvel,
Love, like the crocus, is come ere the Spring.
Young men and women, noble and tender,
Yearn for each other, faith truly plight,
Promise to cherish, comfort and honour;
Vow that makes duty one with delight.
Oh, but the glory, found in no story,
Radiance of Eden unquench'd by the Fall;
Few may remember, none may reveal it,
This the first first-love, the first love of all!

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Whisper

i heard
the whisper of the thunder
and in silenced my dreams
shouted a deafening murmur
of a love gone wild
at the river of no return.
there was the brook
where the moss cling
and watch the beating of the heart
float to the hideaway of forgotten melodies
of a love gone astray
in the wilderness of lost emotions
i heard the silent protests
of souls gone weird
frozen on the valley of death
where the bloodshed eyes let bitter tears
be the nourishment of the dry sand
blown by the winds of constant change
i was left unmoved
my feet got numbed so i just looked
for stars in an starless nights
where the clouds hide the aspirations of a heart
forgotten how to be cared and loved
there was again
the whisper of the thunder
that deafened my heart
and the souls cried
for a love lost in the maze of the stars
in solitude i heard the whisper
of the thunder that shattered the dreams
within my heart
i was laid in a coffin
where distant whispers of lives gone
cried and murmur
once there was this love
borne out of mute whispers
lost in the roar
of deafening silence.

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The Man in Green

A cancer of the lungs,
A murmur of the heart
Theres one he can't control
and one he didn't start

He lies unon his bed
Dressed in death robes green
reflecting on his life
and everything he's seen

The nurse all dressed in black,
notes the pallor of his skin
The doctor comes and asks
Him for the next of kin

A cancer of the heart,
A murmur from the lungs
His elegy he starts,
for there are no other tounges.

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To My Friend - Ode II

THOU go'st! I murmur--
Go! let me murmur.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!

Deadly marshes,
Steaming mists of October
Here interweave their currents,
Blending for ever.

Noisome insects
Here are engender'd;
Fatal darkness
Veils their malice.

The fiery-tongued serpent,
Hard by the sedgy bank,
Stretches his pamper'd body,
Caress'd by the sun's bright beams.

Tempt no gentle night-rambles
Under the moon's cold twilight!
Loathsome toads hold their meetings
Yonder at every crossway.

Injuring not,
Fear will they cause thee.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!

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To The Moon

BUSH and vale thou fill'st again

With thy misty ray,
And my spirit's heavy chain

Castest far away.

Thou dost o'er my fields extend

Thy sweet soothing eye,
Watching like a gentle friend,

O'er my destiny.

Vanish'd days of bliss and woe

Haunt me with their tone,
Joy and grief in turns I know,

As I stray alone.

Stream beloved, flow on! flow on!

Ne'er can I be gay!
Thus have sport and kisses gone,

Truth thus pass'd away.

Once I seem'd the lord to be

Of that prize so fair!
Now, to our deep sorrow, we

Can forget it ne'er.

Murmur, stream, the vale along,

Never cease thy sighs;
Murmur, whisper to my song

Answering melodies!

When thou in the winter's night

Overflow'st in wrath,
Or in spring-time sparklest bright,

As the buds shoot forth.

He who from the world retires,

Void of hate, is blest;
Who a friend's true love inspires,

Leaning on his breast!

That which heedless man ne'er knew,

Or ne'er thought aright,
Roams the bosom's labyrinth through,

Boldly into night.

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The River That Murmurs

I will ask the river, that flows serene
I will speak to the sky
I will ask the river that murmurs

Not to ask me why
I cannot speak for myself.
That time has long since passed me by.

The river can murmur and sing
Unspent by passion: my voice
Will break like a terribly taut string.

My words will be grammatically and academically
Twisted (like that leafless tree) , unfortunately!
I want the river to speak, to speak
Alone, alone with thee.

The river can, softly and without tears
Tell you my dreams and my fears
I know you will listen:
And while city lights in the water glisten

You wont see the tears that shine on my face
No, that is a serious, sentimental place
That only I know;
Flow, river, flow.

Flow, river flow.
Speak to the only love I know.
Daybreak approaches soon
You and he by the light of the moon
Will murmur whilst I -
Will wait for you to bring me his reply.

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