I.
I stood on the brink in childhood,
And watched the bubbles go
From the rock-fretted, sunny ripple
To the smoother tide below;
And over the white creek-bottom,
Under them every one,
Went golden stars in the water,
All luminous with the sun.
But the bubbles broke on the surface,
And under, the stars of gold
Broke; and the hurrying water
Flowed onward, swift and cold.
II.
I stood on the brink in manhood,
And it came to my weary brain,
And my heart, so dull and heavy
After the years of pain,—
That every hollowest bubble
Which over my life had passed
Still into its deeper current
Some heavenly gleam had cast;
That, however I mocked it gayly,
And guessed at its hollowness,
Still shone, with each bursting bubble,
One star in my soul the less.