Literature

‘The Brook’: A Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Just as rivers flow into the sea, so brooks flow into larger rivers, as Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) highlights in this charming poem, ‘The Brook’: ‘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.’

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.

If you enjoyed Tennyson’s ‘The Brook’, you might also enjoy his poem of watery peril, ‘The Kraken’.

3 Comments

  1. Interesting Literature becomes a must.

    Thank you all, of course, to make it possible.

    Thereby I dare to ask a favour:

    Poems about ‘book’.

    Not some book specific: but book, the book.

    A companion to life.

    Thank you very much. Indeed.

    Forte abraço

    Luiz

    ________________________________
    De: Interesting Literature
    Enviado: segunda-feira, 19 de novembro de 2018 06:01:30
    Para: duboc9@hotmail.com
    Assunto: [New post] ‘The Brook’: A Poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

    interestingliterature posted: “Just as rivers flow into the sea, so brooks flow into larger rivers, as Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) highlights in this charming poem, ‘The Brook’: ‘And out again I curve and flow / To join the brimming river, / For men may come and men may go, / But I”

  2. I remeber this poem when I’m in School

  3. Pingback: 10 of the Best Poems about Rivers and Streams | Interesting Literature