Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861

I stood on the brink in childhood,

And watched the bubbles go

From the rock-fretted sunny ripple

To the smoother lymph below;

And over the white creek-bottom,

Under them every one,

Went golden stars in the water,

All luminous with the sun.

But the bubbles brake on the surface,

And under, the stars of gold

Brake, and the hurrying water

Flowed onward, swift and cold.