* * * * *

THE BROOK.

I.

I come from haunts of coot and hern,
  I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
  To bicker down a valley.

II.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
  Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
  And half a hundred bridges.

III.

I chatter over stony ways,
  In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
  I babble on the pebbles.

IV.

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.

V.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
  To join the brimming river;
For men may come, and men may go,
  But I go on forever.

VI.

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.

VII.

And here and there a foamy flake
  Upon me as I travel
With many a silvery water-break
  Above the golden gravel.

VIII.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
  I slide by hazel covers,
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
  That grow for happy lovers.

IX.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
  Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
  Against my sandy shallows.

X.

I murmur, under moon and stars
  In brambly wildernesses,
I linger by my shingly bars,
  I loiter round my cresses.

XI.

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.

* * * * *

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

A LAUGHING CHORUS.

[Used by permission, from “Nature in Verse,” copyrighted, 1895, by Silver, Burdett & Company.]

Oh, such a commotion under the ground
  When March called, “Ho, there! ho!”
Such spreading of rootlets far and wide,
  Such whispering to and fro. 
And “Are you ready?” the Snowdrop asked;
  “’Tis time to start, you know.” 
“Almost, my dear,” the Scilla replied;
  “I’ll follow as soon as you go.” 
Then, “Ha! ha! ha!” a chorus came
  Of laughter soft and low
From the millions of flowers under the ground—­
  Yes—­millions—­beginning to grow.