The Brook

 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, 
Or slip between the ridges, 
By twenty thorpes, a little town, 
And half a hundred bridges.
 

Till last by Philip's farm I flow 
To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever.
 

I chatter over stony ways, 
In little sharps and trebles, 
I bubble into eddying bays, 
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.
 

I chatter, chatter, as I flow 
To join the brimming river, 
For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever.
 

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, 

And here and there a foamy flake 
Upon me, as I travel 
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, 
But I go on for ever.
 

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 
I slide by hazel covers; 
I move the sweet forget-me-nots 
That grow for happy lovers.
 

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 
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, 
For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on for ever.

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