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.