Explore "To Joseph Jefferson (Epigrams, Greetings, and Inscriptions)" by Henry Van Dyke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_May 4th_, 1898. -- _To-day, fishing down the Swiftwater, I / found Joseph Jefferson on a big rock in the middle of the brook, / casting the fly for trout. He said he had fished this very stream / three-and-forty years ago; and near by, in the Paradise Valley, / he wrote his famous play._ -- Leaf from my Diary.
We met on Nature's stage, / And May had set the scene, / With bishop-caps standing in delicate ranks, / And violets blossoming over the banks, / While the brook ran full between.
The waters rang your call, / With frolicsome waves a-twinkle, -- / They knew you as boy, and they knew you as man, / And every wave, as it merrily ran, / Cried, "Enter Rip van Winkle! "