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 many 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 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.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, (1809 - 1892) was Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets today. Tennyson was known for short lyrics, such as in Break, Break, Break and The Charge of the Light Brigade. A great deal of his property was based on classical mythological themes.

1. haunts: places often visited
2. coot: black bird that lives near water
3. hern: heron
4. sally: jump or leap
5. bicker: here flow noisily
6. thorps: villages
7. brimming: almost overflowing
8. chatter: make rapid sounds
9. sharps and trebles: high-pitched notes
10. eddying: moving fast in a circle
11. babble: low continuous sound of water flowing over stones
12. fret: worry
13. fallow: uncultivated land
14. foreland: an area of land bordering on another
15. willow-weed: a plant that looks like a willow with purple flowers
16. mallow: plant with hairy stems and leaves
17. lusty: lively
18. trout: silvery freshwater fish
19. grayling: a silvery grey fish