Part 4 — THE BROOK.

I come from haunts of coot1 and hern,2 I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker3 down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps,4 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 forever. 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 foreland5 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 forever. 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 forever. I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel6 covers; I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers. I slip, I slide, I gloom,7 I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeams dance Against my shady shallows. I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly8 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 forever.

"Here, by this brook, we parted; I to the East And he to Italy—too late—too late: . . . . . . . . . Yet the brook he loved . . . . . seems, as I re-listen to it, Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy, To me that loved him; for, 'O brook,' he says, 'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme, 'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies: 'I come from haunts of coot and hern,'" etc.