Official Linn Grove, IA Website
Zip Code: 51033
Located in NW Iowa on the Little Sioux River
Last updated 05/27/2008 08:08 PM
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Linn Grove
by Mrs. M. J. Sparks
Reprinted by Edna Robbins in "The Linn Grove Story" 1976
Far from the city's dim and strife
Far from the whirl of busy life
I've found a sweet secluded spot
Where work and worry are forgot.
A village quaint among the hills
Where singing birds and murmuring rills
Are chanting melodies so sweet
Earth seems an Eden all complete.
A picture fair is each vine clad hill;
And the whirling sound of the watermill,
As the restless wheel in the stream below
Keeps time to the river's ceaseless flow,
Falls on the ear with cadence sweet
In this charming, beautiful retreat,
And the lime-tree's bough with easy grace,
Bends low above the old mill-race.
The world of work seems far away
When at the close of a summer day
I watch the sun like a tale that is told
Go down in a sea of amber gold.
And one by one as the stars come out
The evening breezes waft about
From the wooded glen a fragrance wave,
Of dainty wild flowers blooming there.
The river bordered on each side
With wooded hill-sides green and wide,
Goes merrily on its silvery way,
Chanting the self-same song each day;
Dreaming perchance of golden hours,
Of mossy banks and blooming flowers,
Of lovers walking side by side,
Plighting their vows by its silvery tide.
There is something about the river song
That calls to my heart the whole day long.
I have sat for hours on the grassy bank
Where grow the lilies tall and rank,
While the river was singing soft and low
Songs we mortals can not know,
And tried to catch the mystic note
The rippling current set afloat.
Idly I've watched the leaf-lets float
On the silvery tide each a fairy boat
As I listened to the sweet refrain
The river chanted again and again,
Still one can't dream forever you know
So back to the work-day world I go;
But lovely river - Little Sioux
I fear I'm leaving my heart with you.