So, still sauntering on, to the spring under the willows--musical as
soft clinking glasses-pouring a sizeable stream, thick as my neck, pure
and clear, out from its vent where the bank arches over like a
great brown shaggy eyebrow or mouth-roof--gurgling, gurgling
ceaselessly--meaning, saying something, of course (if one could only
translate it)--always gurgling there, the whole year through--never
giving out--oceans of mint, blackberries in summer--choice of light and
shade--just the place for my July sun-baths and water-baths too--but
mainly the inimitable soft sound-gurgles of it, as I sit there hot
afternoons. How they and all grow into me, day after day--everything in
keeping--the wild, just-palpable perfume, and the dappled leaf-shadows,
and all the natural-medicinal, elemental-moral influences of the spot.
Babble on, O brook, with that utterance of thine! I too will express
what I have gather'd in my days and progress, native, subterranean,
past--and now thee. Spin and wind thy way--I with thee, a little while,
at any rate. As I haunt thee so often, season by season, thou knowest,
reckest not me, (yet why be so certain? who can tell?)--but I will learn
from thee, and dwell on thee--receive, copy, print from thee.