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TO A LITTLE BROOK
YOU'RE not so big as you were then,
O little brook!—
I mean those hazy summers when
We boys roamed, full of awe, beside
Your noisy, foaming, tumbling tide,
And wondered if it could be true
That there were bigger brooks than you,
O mighty brook, O peerless brook!
All up and down this reedy place
Where lives the brook,
We angled for the furtive dace;
The redwing-blackbird did his best
To make us think he'd build his nest
Hard by the stream, when, like as not,
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
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