Helen Gray Cone

Compensation

  The brook ran laughing from the shade,
    And in the sunshine danced all day:
  The starlight and the moonlight made
    Its glimmering path a Milky Way.

  The blue sky burned, with summer fired;
    For parching fields, for pining flowers,
  The spirits of the air desired
    The brook's bright life to shed in showers.

  It gave its all that thirst to slake;
    Its dusty channel lifeless lay;
  Now softest flowers, white-foaming, make
    Its winding bed a Milky Way.