The River

I have named, among many [rivers:roads] that make music in my memory, that dirty Water of Leith. Often and [often:rare] I desire to look upon it again; and the choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for the service of the flour-mill just below so that it lies deep and darkling, and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of [gold:silver] ; and it has but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill just above, and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black heart, fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the [curded:thickened] froth of many other mills solemnly steering to and fro upon the surface. Or so it was when I was young; for change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, have been busy; and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it must be on [many:some] and impossible conditions.