Have you got a Brook in your little
Heart – where Bashful Flowers Blow?²
All Rivers run into the Sea, yet the Sea
Is not Full – unto the place from whence
The Rivers come, thither they Return again³
A Trail of Hands carry the Rivers to the Sea⁴
The River takes the Land – and leaves Nothing⁵
The River, a Descending scale of Quiet: Terrestrial⁶
Hearken, Hearken! The rapid River carrieth many
Noises underneath the hoary Ocean: Teaching
Its Solemnity sounds of Inland Life and Glee⁷
Above all Ryvers – thy Ryver hath Renowne⁸
I Bathed in the Euphrates when Dawns were
Young – I built my Hut near the Congo and
It Lulled me to Sleep – I looked upon the
Nile and Raised the Pyramids Above me⁹
“You Live by the River?” – “By it
And With it and On it and In it”¹⁰
¹ Wallace Stevens, The River of Rivers in Connecticut
² Emily Dickinson, Have You Got a Brook
³ Ecclesiastes 1.7 (King James)
⁴ Danez Smith, Acknowledgements
⁵ Wendell Berry, The Slip
⁶ Joanna Klink, Night on Land
⁷ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sounds
⁸ William Dunbar, In Honour of the City of London
⁹ Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers
¹⁰ Kenneth Graham, The Wind in the Willows