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           Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)

                      DARTSIDE.   1849.

        I CANNOT tell what you say green leaves,
            I cannot tell what you say :
        But I know that there is a spirit in you,
            And a word in you this day.

        I cannot tell what you say, rosy rocks,
            I cannot tell what you say :
        But I know that there is a spirit in you,
            And a word in you this day.

        I cannot tell what you say, brown streams,
            I cannot tell what you say :
        But I know that in you too a spirit doth live,
            And a word doth speak this day.

        "Oh green is the colour of faith and truth,
        And rose the colour of love and youth,
            And brown of the fruitful clay.
        Sweet Earth is faithful, and fruitful, and young,
        And her bridal day shall come ere long,
    And you shall know what the rocks and the streams
            And the whispering woodlands say."

 

The above poem can be found, for example, in:
  • Kingsley, Charles. The Works. Volume I. Poems. London: Macmillan and Co., 1884. (as found in the facsimile edition printed by Hildesesheim, Germany: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1968.)