To A Mountain Stream By Kate Slaughter McKinney

Glad as childish laughter
From a childish throng,
Sweet as bird voice after
Daybreak is your song.
Racing down the mountain
On your shining feet,
Waltzing at the fountain
To its love song sweet.
On and on you travel,
Leaving me behind,
Like a silken ravel
With the weeds you wind.
Laughing at distresses;
Braving battles, too;
Who your trouble guesses,
And your sorrow—who?
Tell me as you hurry
Through the stubble field,
Why not stop to worry—
But no frown’s revealed.
Sometime you must weary
Of this constant strife;
When the clouds are dreary,
Tire you not of life?
Of the dead leaves drifted
On your saddened face,
And the snow flakes sifted
From the cloudland place?
Yet you ne’er repineth,
But alike content
With the sun that shineth,
And the rainstorm sent.
Teach me half the beauty
That your heart must know,
And through fields of duty
Like you, will I go.