Re: Roberts poems (part 1)
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.
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 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 forever.
I wind about and in and out, with here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout, and there 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 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 sunbeams 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 forever.
by: Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
I learned this at school and, for some reason, it struck a chord and I never forgot it. As I've said, it is now framed and hangs on a wall in my hall.