Lines On A Fountain.

        We love cold water as it flows from the fountain,
        Which nature hath brewed alone in the mountain;
        In the wild woods and in the rocky dell,
        Where man hath not been but the deer loves to dwell;
        And away across the sea in far distant lands,
        In Asia's gloomy jungles and Africa's drifting sands;
        Where to the thirsty traveller a charming spot of green
        Is by far the rarest gem his eyes have ever seen;
        And when he has quenched his thirst at the cooling spring,
        With many grateful songs he makes the air to ring;
        For many nights he dreams of this scene of bliss,
        And when he thinks of Heaven it is of such as this.

James McIntyre

James McIntyre was a Canadian poet, most notable for his poetry concerning cheese, cheese-making, dairying, and dairy products. Often referred to as 'The Cheese Poet,' McIntyre's work is celebrated for its earnestness and unintentional humor, making him both a beloved and an infamous figure in literary circles. He emigrated from Scotland to Canada in 1851 and settled in Ingersoll, Ontario, where he became a successful businessman and community leader.

James McIntyre

Ranney, 1856, Dairy System.

James McIntyre, Simple Poetry

Harvest Home Festival.

James McIntyre, Simple Poetry

Child Made Happy.

James McIntyre, Simple Poetry

Help In Need.

James McIntyre, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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The Source

Water in hidden glens
From the secret heart of the mountains,
Where the red fox hath its dens
And the gods their crystal fountains;
Up runnel and leaping cataract,
Boulder and ledge, I climbed and tracked,
Till I came to the top of the world and the fen
That drinks up the clouds and cisterns the rain,
And down through the floors of the deep morass
The procreant woodland essences drain -
The thunder's home, where the eagles scream
And the centaurs pass;
But, where it was born, I lost my stream.

'Twas in vain I said: "'Tis here it springs,
Though no more it leaps and no more it sings;"
And I thought of a poet whose songs I knew
Of morning made and shining dew -
I remembered the mire of the marshes too.

Richard Le Gallienne

The Fountain

A Conversation

We talked with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,
A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,
Beside a mossy seat;
And from the turf a fountain broke
And gurgled at our feet.

`Now, Matthew!' said I, `let us match
This water's pleasant tune
With some old border-song, or catch
That suits a summer's noon;

`Or of the church-clock and the chimes
Sing here beneath the shade
That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!'

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed
The spring beneath the tree;
And thus the dear old man replied,
The grey-haired man of glee:

`No check, no stay, this streamlet fears,
How merrily it goes!

William Wordsworth

Trehill Well

There stood a low and ivied roof,
    As gazing rustics tell,
In times of chivalry and song
    'Yclept the holy well.

Above the ivies' branchlets gray
    In glistening clusters shone;
While round the base the grass-blades bright
    And spiry foxglove sprung.

The brambles clung in graceful bands,
    Chequering the old gray stone
With shining leaflets, whose bright face
    In autumn's tinting shone.

Around the fountain's eastern base
    A babbling brooklet sped,
With sleepy murmur purling soft
    Adown its gravelly bed.

Within the cell the filmy ferns
    To woo the clear wave bent;
And cushioned mosses to the stone
    Their quaint embroidery lent.

The fountain's face lay still as glass--
    Save wh...

Charles Kingsley

Caledonia Springs, New York.

        The water spouts up from the ground
        And there doth form a pond around,
        'Tis fed from no apparent rills,
        And it near by drives several mills.

        And here the little ponds are seen
        Where fish are propogate by Green,
        Fish hatcheries here had their birth,
        And now they're spread o'er all the earth.

        Here in each pond thousands of trout
        Rush around their circular route,
        Of various breeds, age and size,
        Speckled o'er with various dyes.

        Geologists do gaze with pride
        On specimens all petrified,
        Here church is built of those rare stone,
        Fish, reptiles, birds, in days bygone.

        Strange thoughts in mind it doth awake,

James McIntyre

The Mountain Stream.

One summer morn, while yet the thrilling lay,
Of the dew-loving lark was full and strong,
Trampling the wild flowers in my careless way,
Up the steep mountain-side I strode along
My only guide, a brook whose joyous song,
Seemed like a boy's light-hearted roundelay,
As down it rushed, the leafy bowers among,
Scattering o'er bud and bloom its pearly spray
A beauteous semblance of life's opening day.

And looking back to that all-gladdening morn,
When I was free and sportive as the stream
When roses blushed with no suspected thorn,
And fancy's sunlight gilded every dream
While hope yet shed its sweet delusive beam,
And disappointment still delayed to warn
With fond regret, I still pursued the theme
With clambering step still up the steep was borne,
Too ...

Samuel Griswold Goodrich

Green River.

When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green,
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink;
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,
Have named the stream from its own fair hue.

Yet pure its waters, its shallows are bright
With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where its eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away,
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root,
Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,
Like the ray that streams...

William Cullen Bryant