The world has wrangled half an age
And we again in war engage,
While this sweet, sequester'd rill
Murmurs through the valley still.

   All pacific as you seem;
such a gay elysian stream;
Were you always thus at rest
How the valley would be blest

   But, if always thus at rest
This would not be for the best:
In one summer you would die
And leave the valley parch'd and dry.

  Tell me, where your waters go,
Purling as they downward flow?
Stagnant, now, an now a fall ?-
To the gulph that swallows all.

   Flowing , peaceful, from your urn
Are your waters to return?
Though the same you may appear,
You"re not the same we say last year.

   Not a drop of that remains -
Gone to visit other plains,
Gone to stray through other woods,
Gone, to join the ocean floods !

  Yes, - they  may return once more
To visit scenes they knew before;
Yonder sun, to cheer the vale
From the ocean can exhale

  Vapors, that your waste supply,
Turn'd to rain from yonder sky;
Moisture, vapors to revive
And keep your margin all alive

  But, with all your quiet flow,
Do you not some quarrels know !
Lately angry how you ran !
All at war - and much like man.

  When the shower of waters fell,
How you raged, and what a swell !
All your banks you overflow'd
Scarcely knew your own abode
  How you battled with the rock !
Gave my willow such a shock
As to menace, by its fall,
Underwood and bushes, all:

  Now you are again at peace:
Time will come when that will cease;
Such the human passions are;
- You again will war declare

  Emblem, thou, of restless man;
What a sketch of nature's plan !
Now at peace, and now at war,
Now you murmur, now you roar;

  Muddy now and limpid next,
Now with icy shackles vext -
What a likeness here we find !
What a picture of mankind !

                The Brook of the Valley by Philip Freneau

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