Landscapes with rivers, including images of lakes and inland waterways
Riverscapes
Images of rivers, lakes and estuaries
Looking Glass River
Smooth it glides upon its travel,
Here a wimple, there a gleam –
O the clean gravel!
O the smooth stream!
Sailing blossoms, silver fishes,
Pave pools as clear as air –
How a child wishes
To live down there!
We can see our coloured faces
Floating on the shaken pool
Down in cool places,
Dim and very cool;
Till a wind or water wrinkle,
Dipping marten, plumping trout,
Spreads in a twinkle
And blots all out.
See the rings pursue each other;
All below grows black as night,
Just as if mother
Had blown out the light!
Patience, children, just a minute –
See the spreading circles die;
The stream and all in it
Will clear by-and-by.
By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)