liness. Some places, the silver of the stream gushes a fountain which 

 glasses the hillside and the far-off sky. How it clatters like a busy 

 street, or laughs cheerily like some sunshiny heart, and runs over 

 pebbles, saying, "I go but I tell not whither," and stays not a moment; 

 for the hill is steep, but running like one who hears a friend calling, fills 

 its woodland path with merry voices leaving sweet echoes when itself 

 is gone, and a memory in my heart more lasting than these echoes in 

 this shady wood. Other rivulets hide themselves as in modesty. You 



SUNRISE ON THE RIVER 



can not see whence they come; but they are come. Invisible threads of 

 silver are braided to make this rivulet, and it whispers along its way, 

 and if you will hear its voices you must lean down on the mossy bank it 

 loves, lean and grow glad; for sweet as a child's kiss in the sleepy night 

 is the voice of this silver thread of waters. Such dainty minstrelsy I 

 have not heard since I lay in New England hills. One thing only is 

 lacking here, just one; these brooks do not lose themselves in a tangle 

 of roots and grasses, and then dash out suddenly a sweet surprise; but 

 covetous would he be who would demand more than is here. The 



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