Felicia Hemans in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 32 1832/The Stream Set Free

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For other versions of this work, see The Stream Set Free.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 32, Page 237


VI.

THE STREAM SET FREE.


Flow on, rejoice, make music,
    Bright living stream, set free!
The troubled haunts of care and strife
    Were not for thee!

The woodland is thy bounty,
    Thou art all its own again;
The wild birds are thy kindred race,
    That fear no chain!

Flow on, rejoice, make music
    Unto the glistening leaves!
Thou, the beloved of balmy winds
    And golden eves.

Once more the holy starlight
    Sleeps calm upon thy breast,
Whose brightness bears no token more
    Of man's unrest.

Flow, and let free-born music
    Flow with thy wavy line,
While the stock-dove's lingering, loving voice
    Comes blent with thine.

And the green reeds quivering o'er thee,
    Strings of the forest lyre,
All fill'd with answering spirit-sounds,
    In joy respire.

Yet, midst thy song of gladness,
    Oh! keep one pitying tone
For gentle hearts, that bear to thee
    Their sadness lone.

One sound, of all the deepest,
    To bring, like healing dew,
A sense that Nature ne'er forsakes
    The meek and true.

There, there roll on, make music,
    Thou stream, thou glad and free!
The shadows of all glorious flowers
    Be set in thee!