Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Sweet Ravelrig, I ne'er could part
From thee, but wi' a dowie heart.
When I think on the happy days
I spent in youth about your braes,
When innocence my steps did guide,
Where murmuring streams did sweetly glide
Beside the braes well stored wi' trees,
And sweetest flow'rs that fend the bees:
And there the tuneful tribe doth sing,
While lightly flitting on the wing;
And conscious peace was ever found
Within your mansion to abound.
Sweet be thy former owner's rest,
And peace to him that's now possess't
Of all thy beauties great and small,
Lang may he live to bruik them all!
The Sea said "Come" to the Brook --
The Brook said "Let me grow" --
The Sea said "Then you will be a Sea --
I want a Brook -- Come now"!
The Sea said "Go" to the Sea --
The Sea said "I am he
You cherished" -- "Learned Waters --
Wisdom is stale -- to Me"
I HAVE come a long way to-day:
On a strange bridge alone,
Remembering friends, old friends,
I rest, without smile or moan,
As they remember me without smile or moan.
All are behind, the kind
And the unkind too, no more
To-night than a dream. The stream
Runs softly yet drowns the Past,
The dark-lit stream has drowned the Future and the
Past.
No traveller has rest more blest
Than this moment brief between
Two lives, when the Night's first lights
And shades hide what has never been,
Things goodlier, lovelier, dearer, than will be or have