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 thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges.

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

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.

* * * * * *

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.

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 Tennyson.