In June, the speaker’s brook has gone quiet. Its water may have slipped underground, taking with it the tiny Hyla frogs that called in the mist a month earlier—a sound the speaker remembers as ghostly sleigh-bells in ghostly snow. Or it may reappear only as jewel-weed, frail foliage bending even against the direction the water used to flow. What remains is a dry bed of dead leaves stuck together by summer heat. For most people, it no longer counts as a brook; only someone who remembers it long enough can still recognize it as one. The speaker doesn’t romanticize it. He contrasts this ordinary, seasonal stream with prettier brooks in poetry and ends with a quiet principle: we love things for what they actually are, not for what we wish they were. The mood is tender, a little elegiac, and deeply accepting.
Hyla Brook — Summary
By June our brook’s run out of song and speed. Sought for much after that, it will be found Either to have gone groping underground (And taken with it all the Hyla breed That shouted in the mist a month ago, Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)-- Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed, Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent Even against the way its waters went. Its bed is left a faded paper sheet Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat-- A brook to none but who remember long. This as it will be seen is other far Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song. We love the things we love for what they are.