WINTER AND SUMMER.
Oh, I wish the Winter would go,
And I wish the Summer would come,
Then the big brown farmers will hoe,
And the little brown bee will hum.
Then the robin his fife will trill,
And the wood-piper beat his drum;
And out of their tents on the hill
The little green troops will come.
Then around and over the trees
With a flutter and flirt we’ll go,
A rollicking, frolicking breeze,
And away with a frisk ho! ho!
—Anon.
THE BROOK.
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down the 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 bank 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 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.
—Tennyson.