A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Coleridge I will arise and go now, for always night and day Yeats "Believe absolute nothing "Nice? It's the only thing," said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. me, my young friend, there is nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing," he went on dreamily: messing about in - boats. . . . Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not. Look here! If you've really nothing else on hand this morning, supposing we drop down the river together and have a long day of it?" Kenneth Grahame INLAND WATERS G THE BIRCH CANOE FROM Hiawatha IVE me of your bark, O Birch-Tree! Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree! Growing by the rushing river, Tall and stately in the valley! I a light canoe will build me, Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, Like a yellow water-lily! "Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-Tree! Lay aside your white-skin wrapper, For the Summer-time is coming, And the sun is warm in heaven, And you need no white-skin wrapper!" Thus aloud cried Hiawatha In the solitary forest, By the rushing Taquamenaw, Just beneath its lowest branches, Down he hewed the boughs of cedar, Shaped them straightway to a frame-work, Like two bows he formed and shaped them, Like two bended bows together. 'Give me of your roots, O Tamarack! Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-Tree! My canoe to bind together, So to bind the ends together That the water may not enter, And the Larch, with all its fibres, From the earth he tore the fibres, Tore the tough roots of the Larch-Tree, Closely sewed the bark together, Bound it closely to the framework. "Give me of your balm, O Fir-Tree! Of your balsam and your resin, And the Fir-Tree, tall and sombre, "Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog! All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog! I will make a necklace of them, Make a girdle for my beauty, And two stars to aeck her bosom!" From a hollow tree the Hedgehog With his sleepy eyes looked at him, Shot his shining quills like arrows, Saying, with a drowsy murmur, Through the tangle of his whiskers, "Take my quills, O Hiawatha!" From the ground the quills he gathered, All the little shining arrows, Stained them red and blue and yellow, And the forest's life was in it, All its mystery and its magic, Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, Like a yellow water-lily. Henry W. Longfellow WHERE GO THE BOATS? D ARK brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along forever, With trees on either hand. Green leaves a-floating, Castles of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating Where will all come home? On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. Robert Louis Stevenson |