Brook

“ There's a brook That starts up on it somewhere—I've heard say Right on the top, tip-top—a curious thing. But what would interest you about the brook, It's always cold in summer, warm in winter. One of the great sights going is to see It steam in winter like an ox's breath, Until the bushes all along its banks Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles— You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!" "There ought to be a view around the world From such a mountain—if it isn't wooded Clear to the top." ”

“ So I came to the window, and thrusting my head and shoulders sidewise through the narrow lattice, slowly, and with much ado, wriggled myself out. Rising from my hands and knees, I stood up and threw wide my arms to the perfumed night, inhaling its sweetness in great, deep breaths, and so turned my steps towards the brook, drawn thither by its rippling melody; for a brook is a companionable thing, at all times, to a lonely man, and very full of wise counsel and friendly admonitions, if he but have ears to hear withal. ”

“ I'm glad," said the discontented Brook.
"Glad of what?" exclaimed a roaring voice, coming over the rock, and sweeping away the leaves as if they had been a mere handful; and covering up the ugly purple stain upon the willow stump. "Ain't I a famous fellow, though? When once my blood is up, can't I go on and frighten people? Can't I mine out the earth, and sweep along big trees like boats? Can't I tumble down the rocks that dare to stop my path? Can't I drown men and boys, and all the cattle in the land? ”

“ If you were with me, I would whisper in your ear my division of "Crossing the Brook" into pleasing and unpleasing passages—the pleasing being the fleecy clouds in the blue sky, the faint miles of Devonshire, the wooded hills rising from the river, and the bridge that spans the water: the unpleasing passages are the worried foreground, the ugly rocks, the figures, and the black mouth of the tunnel. ”

“ However, we have learned that the brook is no idler, that its main work is to conduct to the ocean the rain that falls upon the earth's surface, and that in doing this it is wearing down the hills, carrying them away only to build up in other places. The cheerful song of the brook takes on a new meaning as we lie in the shade and watch it hurry by. It is not the song of idleness nor of pleasure, but like the song with which a cheerful and tireless worker seeks to make its task lighter. ”

“ Have you ever noticed what cheerful things brooks are? They’re always laughing. Even in winter-time I’ve heard them under the ice. I’m so glad there’s a brook near Green Gables. Perhaps you think it doesn’t make any difference to me when you’re not going to keep me, but it does. I shall always like to remember that there is a brook at Green Gables even if I never see it again. If there wasn’t a brook I’d be haunted by the uncomfortable feeling that there ought to be one. I’m not in the depths of despair this morning. I never can be in the morning. ”

“ THE BROOK
I LOOKED in the brook and saw a face—
⁠Heigh-ho, but a child was I!
There were rushes and willows in that place,
⁠And they clutched at the brook as the brook ran by;
And the brook it ran its own sweet way,
As a child doth run in heedless play,
And as it ran I heard it say:
⁠"Hasten with me
⁠To the roistering sea
⁠That is wroth with the flame of the morning sky!"
I look in the brook and see a face—
⁠Heigh-ho, but the years go by! ”

“ But the Brook was far more attractive, for it had sheltered bathing-places, clear and white sanded, and weedy stretches, where the shy pickerel loved to linger, and deep pools, where the stupid sucker stirred the black mud with his fins. I had followed it all the way from its birthplace among the pleasant New Hampshire hills, through the sunshine of broad, open meadows, and under the shadow of thick woods. ”

“ It was surrounded by woods in all directions save to the southeast, where a break in the leafy wall revealed a vista of low green meadows, picturesque with wooded islands and jutting capes of upland. Through these, a small brook, noisy enough as it foamed, rippled, and laughed down its rocky falls by our gardenside, wound, silently and scarcely visible, to a still larger stream, known as the Country Brook. ”

“ On the ground, springing up everywhere, were the dark leaves and bright red berries of the cranberry and bilberry; while down by the brook the greenest of all mosses covered the stones, and converted any old log that came in their way into the softest of seats. Then, what a wild and roaring little brook that Stony Brook was! You could follow it all the way through the woods by only stepping from stone to stone, and every little while you might see a great hole scooped out in the rock, where the water lay dark and silent, or a little precipice over which it dashed and foamed. ”

“ A little farther on, there is a brook
Where the breeze lingers idly. The high trees
Have roof'd it with their crowding limbs and leaves,
So that the sun drinks not from its sweet fount,
And the shade cools it. ”

“ Inclosed upon two sides by mountains and thick groves of beech, it would be a perfect desert but for the clear crystal brook which purls its way along the glistening stones. This labyrinthine brook, indeed, fills the barren spot with animation, whilst it creates too that singular power of attraction which we cannot explain to ourselves, but which, nevertheless, becomes our unfailing companion in regions with which the heart of the people has intimately associated itself by tales of wonder and tradition. ”

“ They protested, in a mass, against her going. “We cannot lock the door, Lucy, de facto,” said Sir Brook, “but we do it figuratively.”
“And in that case I make my escape by the window,” said she, springing through an old lancet-shaped orifice in the Abbey wall.
“There goes down the sun and leaves us but a gray twilight,” said Sir Brook, mournfully, as he looked after her. “If there were only enough beauty on earth, I verily believe we might dispense with parsons.”
“Push me over the bird's-eye, and let me nourish myself till your millennium comes,” said the vicar. ”

“ Weeds choke the garden walks, and the moss grows green and damp on the old stone wall. Even the brook which ran so merrily past our door has been stopped in its course, and its sparkling waters, bereft of freedom, now turn the wheel of a huge saw-mill, with a low and sullen roar. ”

“ It was in this mood he got back to the little lodging in a humble suburb called Cullen's Wood, where Sir Brook awaited him. It is not impossible that the disparities of temperament in this world are just as beneficial, just as grateful, as are the boundless variety and change we find in nature. To Tom Lendrick's depression, almost disgust with life, Sir Brook brought that bright, hopeful, happy spirit which knew how to throw sunlight on every path to be travelled. ”

“ It has young trees and baby bushes on each side of it, and it 's a shallow chattering little brook with a white sandy bottom and lots of little shiny pebbles. Whenever there's a bit of sunshine the brook catches it, and it 's always full of sparkles the livelong day. ”

“ It will do the same, brave little rill! when snow covers the leaves and ice forms above and below the snow. The sweet jingling notes will be muffled, but they will be sung all the same.
Of course I drank from the brook, sweeping away the encumbering leaves from the top of the fall to get the water just where it rushed most swiftly. Not to drink from a New Hampshire brook is almost as much of a slight as not to bow to a friend, or not to kiss a little child when she lifts her face for the good-night caress which she thinks all the world is ready and worthy to give to little children. ”

“ On the whole, again, from the social point of view, the Brook Farm experiment was eminently successful. We were happy, contented, well-off and care-free; doing a great work in the world, enthusiastic and faithful, we enjoyed every moment of every day, dominated every moment of every day by the Spirit of Brook Farm. ”

“ He had got an idea of writing a poem, called The Brook, tracing a stream which he had found, from its source, in the hills, among the yellow-red moss, and conical glass-shaped tufts of bent, to the first break, or fall, where its drops become audible, and it begins to form a channel; thence to the peat and turf barn, itself built of the same dark masses as it sheltered; to the sheepfold; to the first cultivated spot of ground; to the lonely cottage, and its bleak garden won from the heath; to the hamlets, the market-towns, the manufactories, and the sea-port. ”

“ How still the boy laid on her breast! his head against the willow stump, over which there trickled a tiny purple stream smaller than the spring-drops from the rock! How richly his golden locks floated upon the Brook! but how widely strained his bright blue eyes glaring at the sky and tree-tops above, and how he gasped from his mouth; a mouth so like the one the laborer had often prest in harvest-time to the Brook, when it was yet circling in the meadow! The Brook said to herself, "I will put some of my ripples into this mouth, as I have seen the laborer do ”

“ It took but little to amuse, sometimes, for on one of the beautiful summer days at nooning time, a group of men were resting in the shade of the arbor that was on an island artificially made in the brook below the terraces in front of the Hive, breathing the pure, balmy air of outdoors instead of the indoor air of the workshop, reclining on the thick greensward, when some two or three essayed the not very difficult feat of jumping the merrily running brook, from embankment to embankment, and dared Tirrell, one of the number, to follow. ”

“ The native brook winding its way among ragged banks, fringed with yellow flag and purple loosestrife, is charming when its surroundings consist of wood and brake and lush meadowland; it becomes a weedy ditch when shaven lawns and trim pathways have taken their place. ”

“ Brooks, birds, and trees! Your choice of such good company, and yet there are those who would have gone mad here from loneliness! For the time I gave heed to the brook, wondering as usual what might be beneath the surface, and all the while, as ever happens, the creatures of the brook were wondering about myself. If one turns to the text-books he will find much said of the instinct that leads the lower forms of life to seek a safe shelter as winter approaches. ”

“ In winter no such passage would be easy; the brook becomes an angry torrent, leaping with foam and impetuous fury down the rock-strewn gorge: but that which at times can become a relentless giant, at other times is like a playful nursling ”

“ But at night the brook is heard at its best, when it performs its symphonies for the flickering moonlight that nestles upon its bosom, and the stars that reflect their lamps on its surface.
Make your camp on its margin and when your fire burns low, and you draw your blanket around you, with the mountain brook singing its lullaby, and the vesper sparrow chanting its melodious vesper hymn, you can say with the psalmist, "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep," and you might add, "lulled by the song of the mountain brook." ”

“ My daughter, too, is one of the brook kind, but you needn't conclude that the old road doesn't enjoy all the company of blackberry vines and laurel and ferns that the brook attracts to itself, and which never would have come near the road but for the brook. ”

“ THE BROOK IN THE WAY Alongside every highway runs the brook whereof a man may drink often if he will and drinking lift up his head. Its little song we scarce hear in the rush of our businesses; its refreshing we forget even though our throats be parched with the dust of our petty affairs. ”

“ Perhaps I may have mentioned, though I will not be too sure, that a little trifle of a brook arises, among the few fields which we still kept in hand, and contrives to make its way, without venturing upon noise, but accepting every zigzag that any hedgerow offers, down the trend of land that goes away very mildly, until it gets view of a valley. ”

“ There, also, was the delegation from Brook Farm, in whose appearance it was plain to see that in Arcadia the hair was worn long, that the stiff collar and cravat were repudiated, and that woollen blouses were a mute protest against the body coats of a selfish and competitive civilization. Those young fellows walked in from Brook Farm and out again. They made nothing of ten miles or so each way under the winter stars. ”

“ The brook runs through a valley, on one side bordered by a high and precipitous bank; on the other there is an interval, and then the bank rises upward and upward into a high hill with gorges and ravines separating one summit from another, and here and there are bare places, where the rain-streams have washed away the grass. The brook is bestrewn with stones, some bare, some partially moss-grown, and sometimes so huge as—once at least—to occupy almost the whole breadth of the current. ”

“ He'd hung it in a secret spot
⁠Far from the brook, the telltale brook!
And often, when the noontime heat
⁠Parboiled the brook,
We'd draw our boots and swing our feet
Upon the waves that, in their play,
Would tag us last and scoot away ”

“ A little brook is a fascinating object to persons unaccustomed to its coaxing, vagrant witcheries. There were no brooks on the island, only springs that trickled down from the cliffs into the lake in tiny silver water-falls. Anne followed the brook. ”

“ That man—Sir Brook, I mean—is nothing to me; he ought to be, but he is not. My father and he were friends; that is, my father thought he was his friend, and left him the guardianship of me on his deathbed.”
“Your guardian,—Sir Brook your guardian?” cried Lucy, with intense eagerness.
“Yes; with more power than the law, I believe, would accord to any guardian.” She paused and seemed lost in thought for some seconds, and then went on: “Colonel Sewell and he never liked each other. Sir Brook took little trouble to be liked by him; perhaps Dudley was as careless on his side. ”