1. I come from haunts of coot and hern;
2. I make a sudden sally,
3. And sparkle out among the fern
4. To bicker down a valley.
5. By thirty hills I hurry down,
6. Or slip between the ridges;
7. By twenty thorps, a little town,
8. And half a hundred bridges.
9. Till last by Philip's farm I flow
10. To join the brimming river;
11. For men may come, and men may go,
12. But I go on forever.
13. I chatter over stony ways
14. In little sharps and trebles;
15. I bubble into eddying bays;
16. I babble on the pebbles.
17. With many a curve my banks I fret,
18. By many a field and fallow,
19. And many a fairy foreland set
20. With willow-weed and mallow.
21. I chatter, chatter, as I flow
22. To join the brimming river;
23. For men may come, and men may go,
24. But I go on forever.
25. I wind about, and in and out,
26. With here a blossom sailing,
27. And here and there a lusty trout,
28. And here and there a grayling,
29. And here and there a foamy flake
30. Upon me as I travel;
31. With many a silvery waterbreak
32. Above the golden gravel;
33. And draw them all along, and flow,
34. To join the brimming river;
35. For men may come, and men may go,
36. But I go on forever.
37. I steal by lawns and grassy plots;
38. I slide by hazel covers;
39. I move the sweet forget-me-nots
40. That grow for happy lovers.