Oh laughing brook
Oh happy brook,
Your smile and
Murmur delights.
Your chilly water,
Ice on snow,
Holds my toes
And feet.

Old man time, now white with age,
Who holds the warps
And wefts of fate

Weaves a cloth of stars and moons
With fingers tired
And worn

Darkest shadow
Brightest flame
Burning passion
Silence, tame

Loving one,
Many times
Broken hearts,
Guiltless crimes

Tears of grief
Shed for him
Sunless ages
Dark and grim

Dawn of hope
Of light again
Wakened life
From silence, then,

Circle closing,
Ending, starting,
Edges meeting,
Brushing, parting

Darkest shadow
Brightest flame
Burning passion
Silence, tame

These are the ways of my people
And this is the land that I know
My home will be always these hillsides
Where waters of ages still flow

But time for my people is passing
Our land is no longer our own
Our children forsake now the stories
Of a past that they never have known

For life all around us is changing
And stories no longer apply
The ways of our fathers are fading
And our children shall bid them goodbye

But these hills will be always my homeland,
Though the waters of history pass,
And stories of ages live after
In the birds and the wind in the grass

The blanket fog so white and still
Yet cloaked the land this morn’
To guard her from the morning chill
And keep her ***** warm

It clung to flower, branch, and air
To hide the maiden blush
That rose upon her features fair
When sunlight soft her eyelids brushed

The sunlight in the fog that day
Was as a pearl in hue
It shone and shimmered as if lay
Above a streak of blue

The river’s waters wound their way
As o’er her face they flowed
And caught the sunlight of the day
That broke the blanket’s hold

Her cover fled, that tender maid
Awoke with songs and sighs
And over all bright sunlight played
To warm her as she lies

Dark as onyx
Strong and stalwart
Gnarled by the crashing wind

Leaves of emerald
Turned to silver
Rustling in the mountain air

Berries red as
Roughhewn rubies
Glinting through the falling dark

Alone upon its
Craggy mountain
Keeping watch this night