There is a river clear and fair, 'Tis neither broad nor narrow;It winds a little here and there --It winds about like any hare;And then it takes as straight a courseAs on the turnpike road a horse, Or through the air an arrow.The trees that grow upon the shore,Have grown a hundred years or more; So long there is no knowing.Old Daniel Dobson does not knowWhen first those trees began to grow;But still they grew, and grew, and grew,As if they'd nothing else to do, But ever to be growing.
The impulses of air and skyHave reared their stately stems so high, And clothed their boughs with green;Their leaves the dews of evening quaff, -- And when the wind blows loud and keen,I've seen the jolly timbers laugh, And shake their sides with merry glee -- Wagging their heads in mockery.
Fix'd are their feet in solid earth, Where winds can never blow;But visitings of deeper birth Have reached their roots below.For they have gained the river's brink,And of the living waters drink.
There's little Will, a five years' child -- He is my youngest boy;To look on eyes so fair and wild, It is a very joy: --He hath conversed with sun and shower,And dwelt with every idle flower, As fresh and gay as them.He loiters with the briar rose, --The blue-belles are his play-fellows, That dance upon their slender stem.
And I have said, my little Will,Why should not he continue still A thing of Nature's rearing?A thing beyond the world's control --A living vegetable soul, -- No human sorrow fearing.
It were a blessed sight to seeThat child become a willow tree, His brother trees among.He'd be four times as tall as me, And live three times as long.
