| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | XII. To the River Otter | | By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) |
| | | DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West! | |
| How many various-fated years have past, | |
| What happy, and what mournful hours, since last | |
| I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast, | |
| Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest | 5 |
| Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes | |
| I never shut amid the sunny ray, | |
| But straight with all their tints thy waters rise, | |
| Thy crossing-plank, thy marge with willows gray, | |
| And bedded sand, that, veined with various dyes, | 10 |
| Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way | |
| Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled | |
| Lone manhood’s cares, yet waking fondest sighs: | |
| Ah! that once more I were a careless child! | | | | |
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