Practice Book, Leland Powers School · Chapter 11The Brook
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I. I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley. II. By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges; By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges. III. I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles. IV. 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. V. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever. VI. I wind about and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling. VII. And here and there a foamy flake Upon me as I travel With many a silvery water-break Above the golden gravel. VIII. I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel covers, I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers. IX. I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows. X. I murmur, under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses, I linger by my shingly bars, I loiter round my cresses. XI. And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.