Tuesday peotry

THE BROOK

by: Alfred Lord Tennyson

      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 comeand 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 silver 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.

I find Tennyson's vision of the world just that bit too close to the edge, personally.

Comments

minternational said…
the edge of what? sanity? reality? the cliffs? we, the people, ask you sir to name your edge.
Alan said…
madness.

There is a quality that approaches Spike Milligan or Monty Python. For example...

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


Other potes leap that edge, of course, as in Wordsworth's joyful lines from The Thorn

I've measured it from side to side,
'tis four feet long and three feet wide.


Sheer potrey.
Anonymous said…
I like your choice of powetree, (about the only spelling you haven't yet had), it's absolutely lovely and speaks just so clearly of what that brook is doing. That's where genious and I part company, I can only appreciate it, Tennyson was it. And yet for all of its beauty, though now not often heard, it has clearly been well known for it is quoted, though infrequently. Sadly, the only bit that is repeated, as far as I can recall is, 'For men may come and men may go, but I go on for ever'. (Revelation does though have something to say on the last line!)

What's more, it is real poetry, it rhymes.

Howver, PLEASE do not compare something as illustrious as this to Monty Python or even Spike ("I'm sane and I've got a certificate to prove it") Milligan, brilliant though he was in his own way.
Alan said…
I can't promise to refrain from such comparisons, Kenneth, for fear of letting you down.

Meanwhile it occurs to me that this pome would make an excellent exercise of articulation and enunciation for learners of the english tongue.

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