Mountain spring

As sheets of tinted gold
or molten silver, you glow
springing free, from a rocky hold
with blithe abandon you flow.

Bubbling, gay, you make your way
under this eroded arch, over yon hard rock ledge
while your merry gurgle seems to say
to lifelong goodness, a pledge.

Pray, what makes you so
merry, buoyant and free
is it some unknown you know
or some holy light you see?

Perhaps it is the relief,
of a new life you see (under sunny skies)
for you must have known the grief
of a rocky prison, which no sunbeams prise.

Or its that you just rejoice
as the bearer of nature's elixir
and through your mellifluous voice
herald providence, light and cheer.

I really do not know
the secrets in your blithe voice's peal
yet, on your rocky banks, as you gently flow
my puny despairs die, my imagined wounds heal.