Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
Who doth ambition shun,
And loves to live i' the sun,
Seeking the food he eats,
And pleased with what he gets,
Come hither, come hither, come hither!
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.
By William Shakespeare
Little brook! Little brook!
You have such a happy look--
Such a very merry manner, as you swerve and
curve and crook--
And your ripples, one and one,
Reach each other's hands and run
Like laughing little children in the sun!
Little brook, sing to me:
Sing about a bumblebee
That tumbled from a lily-bell and grumbled
mumblingly,
Because he wet the film
Of his wings, and had to swim,
While the water-bugs raced round and laughed
at him!
Little brook--sing a song
Of a leaf that sailed along
Down the golden-braided center of your current
swift and strong,
And a dragon-fly that lit
On the tilting rim of it,
And rode away and wasn't scared a bit.
And sing--how oft in glee
Came a truant boy like me,
Who loved to lean and listen to your lilting
melody,
Till the gurgle and refrain
Of your music in his brain
Wrought a happiness as keen to him as pain.
Little brook--laugh and leap!
Do not let the dreamer weep;
Sing him all the songs of summer till he sink in
softest sleep;
And then sing soft and low
Through his dreams of long ago--
Sing back to him the rest he used to know!
BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
At evening when the lamp is lit,
Around the fire my parents sit.
They sit at home, and talk and sing,
And do not play at anything.
Now, with my little gun, I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.
There in the night, where none can spy,
All in my hunter's camp I lie,
And play at books that I have read,
Till it is time to go to bed.
These are the hills, these are the woods,
These are my starry solitudes,
And there the river by whose brink
The roaring lions come to drink.
I see the others far away,
As if in firelit camp they lay,
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about.
So, when my nurse comes in for me,
Home I return across the sea,
And go to bed with backward looks
At my dear Land of Story-books.
By Robert Louis Stevenson
