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 Phillips 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 , 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 water-break above the golden gravel.

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."

~Tennyson~