From the French. To my Brooklet

(À mon Ruisseau)
By Jean François Ducis

THOU brooklet, all unknown to song,

Hid in the covert of the wood!

Ah, yes, like thee I fear the throng,

Like thee I love the solitude.

O brooklet, let my sorrows past

Lie all forgotten in their graves,

Till in my thoughts remain at last

Only thy peace, thy flowers, thy waves.

The lily by thy margin waits;—

The nightingale, the marguerite;

In shadow here he meditates

His nest, his love, his music sweet.

Near thee the self-collected soul

Knows naught of error or of crime;

Thy waters, murmuring as they roll,

Transform his musings into rhyme.

Ah, when, on bright autumnal eves,

Pursuing still thy course, shall I

List the soft shudder of the leaves,

And hear the lapwing’s plaintive cry?