The Brook's Song

 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 water-break
 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.

 (From The Brook)
Alfred Lord Tennyson