A Brook in the City

by Robert Frost

THE farm house lingers, though averse to square

With the new city street it has to wear

A number in.  But what about the brook

That held the house as in an elbow-crook?

I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength

And impulse, having dipped a finger length

And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed

A flower to try its currents where they crossed.

The meadow grass could be cemented down

From growing under pavements of a town;

The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.

Is water wood to serve a brook the same?

How else dispose of an immortal force

No longer needed?  Staunch it at its source

With cinder loads dumped down?  The brook was thrown

Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone

In fetid darkness still to live and run —

And all for nothing it had ever done

Except forget to go in fear perhaps.

No one would know except for ancient maps

That such a brook ran water.  But I wonder

If from its being kept forever under

The thoughts may not have risen that so keep

This new-built city from both work and sleep.