Song of the Brook

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

From “The Brook: an Idyl”

I COME from haunts of coot and hern:	
  I make a sudden sally	
And sparkle out among the fern,	
  To bicker down a valley.	
 
By thirty hills I hurry down,	        5
  Or slip between the ridges,	
By twenty thorps, a little town,	
  And half a hundred bridges.	
 
Till last by Philip’s farm I flow	
  To join the brimming river,	        10
For men may come and men may go,	
  But I go on forever.	
 
I chatter over stony ways,	
  In little sharps and trebles,	
I bubble into eddying bays,	        15
  I babble on the pebbles.	
 
With many a curve my banks I fret	
  By many a field and fallow,	
And many a fairy foreland set	
  With willow-weed and mallow.	        20
 
I chatter, chatter, as I flow	
  To join the brimming river;	
For men may come and men may go,	
  But I go on forever.	
 
I wind about, and in and out,	        25
  With here a blossom sailing,	
And here and there a lusty trout,	
  And here and there a grayling,	
 
And here and there a foamy flake	
  Upon me, as I travel	        30
With many a silvery waterbreak	
  Above the golden gravel,	
 
And draw them all along, and flow	
  To join the brimming river;	
For men may come and men may go,	        35
  But I go on forever.	
 
I steal by lawns and grassy plots:	
  I slide by hazel covers;	
I move the sweet forget-me-nots	
  That grow for happy lovers.	        40
 
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,	
  Among my skimming swallows;	
I make the netted sunbeam dance	
  Against my sandy shallows;	
 
I murmur under moon and stars	        45
  In brambly wildernesses;	
I linger by my shingly bars;	
  I loiter round my cresses;	
 
And out again I curve and flow	
  To join the brimming river;	        50
For men may come and men may go,	
  But I go on forever.