The Brook of the Valley

The world has wrangled half an age,
And we again in war engage,
While this sweet, sequester'd rill
Murmurs through the valley still.

All pacific as you seem:
Such a gay elysian stream;--
Were you always thus at rest
How the valley would be blest.

But, if always thus at rest;
This would not be for the best:
In one summer you would die
And leave the valley parch'd and dry.

Tell me, where your waters go,
Purling as they downward flow?
Stagnant, now, and now a fall?--
To the gulph that swallows all.

Flowing, peaceful, from your urn
Are your waters to return?--
Though the same you may appear,
You're not the same we saw last year.

Not a drop of that remains--
Gone to visit other plains,
Gone, to stray through other woods,
Gone, to join the ocean floods!

Yes--they may return once more
To visit scenes they knew before;--
Yonder sun, to cheer the vale
From the ocean can exhale

Vapors, that your waste supply,
Turn'd to rain from yonder sky;
Moisture, vapors, to revive
And keep your margin all alive.

But, with all your quiet flow,
Do you not some quarrels know!
Lately, angry, how you ran!
All at war--and much like man.

When the shower of waters fell,
How you raged, and what a swell!
All your banks you overflow'd,
Scarcely knew your own abode!

How you battled with the rock!
Gave my willow such a shock
As to menace, by its fall,
Underwood and bushes, all:

Now you are again at peace:
Time will come when that will cease;
Such the human passions are;
--You again will war declare.

Emblem, thou, of restless man;
What a sketch of nature's plan!
Now at peace, and now at war,
Now you murmur, now you roar;

Muddy now, and limpid next,
Now with icy shackles vext--
What a likeness here we find!
What a picture of mankind!