THE BROOK
The Brook is the story of a creek. It begins its journey high in the mountains and goes past valleys, farms encountering birds, fish, ferns, people on its way until it joins the river. Written in 1886, it is a gem of reading, beautiful and remarkable for its resonant words that conjure corresponding sounds and images to the mind.
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.
ALFRED LORD TENNYSON
Tennyson was a British poet. He lived from 6th August, 1809 to 6th October, 1892. He wrote this poem in 1886. Picture above has been borrowed from The British Museum. The poem above, moving lightly, has an underlying sobering refrain of the transience of humans in contrast to the permanence of nature.
TENNYSON SAID:
ON PERSEVERANCE
To Strive, To Seek and not to Yield
ON NEW YEAR
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
ON BREAKING OUT
The Shell must break
Before the Bird can fly
ON LOVE
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
ON BRAVERY
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
ON DISTRACTION
If you don’t concentrate on what you are doing
then
the thing that you are doing is not what you are thinking.
LOVE & ETERNITY
If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…
I could walk through my garden forever.
FOR THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers
SMILE A WHILE
Question: Why was John Keats always hounded by creditors?
Answer: Because he Ode so much.
You might like to visit: http://www.allanwolf.com/poetry-jokes/ to which site, the above joke is ‘ode’.