BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

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 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 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 forever.