Thou winding silvery thread,
Finding thy hidden way;
Through foliage dense and green,
Stop, list to what I say.

Tell me, where can I find,
The joy which is thine own:
With which you course your way,
With never, never a moan?

Thou seem'st to laugh so gay,
To catch the bright sun-beam;
As stealing through the trees it comes,
To kiss thy rippling stream.

Thy gurgling music seems,
To give me some faint touch;
Of the joy which is thine own,
O how I long for such.

O tell me, can in truth,
Such joy be found? I seem
To hear the answer, “No,
Save 'neath my cooling stream.”