THE RIVULETS.
Go up and mark the new-born rill,
Just trickling from its mossy bed;
Streaking the heath-clad hill
With a bright emerald thread.
Canst thou her bold career foretell,
What rocks she shall o’erleap or rend,
How far in ocean’s swell,
Her freshening billows send?
Perchance that little brook shall flow
The bulwark of some mighty realm,
Bear navies to and fro,
With monarchs at their helm.
Or canst thou guess how far away
Some sister nymph, beside her urn,
Reclining night and day,
'Mid reeds and mountain fern,
Nurses her store, with thine to blend,
When many a moor and glen are past;
Then in the wide sea end
Their spotless lives at last?
Even so the course of prayer who knows?
It springs in silence when it will—
Springs out of sight, and flows
At first a lonely rill.
But streams shall meet it by-and-by,
From thousand sympathetic hearts—
Together swelling high,
Their chant of many parts.
* * * * *
John Keble.