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‘heard the sound—and the spirit of the sound. And a few days 
after, passing at night over the bridge near the water-meetings 
in Salford, I heard it again, and perhaps only those who have 
so heard it will care to hear my verses. 
WATER-MEETINGS. 
I know a place of meeting streams 
Where the pure waters flow, 
And in a sylvan valley make 
Sweet music as they go. 
These waters flow where wild-flowers grow 
The tufted ferns between, 
And underneath the forest boughs, 
With all their waving green. 
And oft when to that lonely place 
I fly from evil dreams, 
I linger, listening to the sound, 
One sound of many streams. 
And, lingering, I seem to hear, 
Far inward and divine, 
A voice, as of the soul of things 
Were singing unto mine. 
I know a place of meeting streams 
Where the dark waters flow 
Through a thickly-peopled town, and make 
Strange music as they go. 
By sordid homes and alleys dim, 
By haunts of crime and wrong, 
These waters flow, and as they go 
They sing the same sweet song, 
They whisper of the solitude 
In moorland valleys found, 
They sing a song of violets 
Hid in the mossy ground. 
They sing all day the old sweet song 
To woodland wanderers dear, 
But in the busy hum of men 
No soul hath ears to hear. 
Only when night is on the streams 
And silence in the street, 
Lingering, I listen for that song 
Where the dark waters meet: 
And, listening, I seem again 
To hear the mystic tone, 
As if a kindred spirit sang, 
And sang to me alone. 
Sometimes nature suggests a diviner life beyond nature, but 
sometimes it suggests a more intimate divinity, as if itself were 
divine! and then tree, and flower, and stream, and forest speak 
to us in language which it is impossible to translate into words. 
We know so little. ‘We move about in world not realised,” 
