Question

The poem is about a brook. A dictionary would define a brook, as a stream or a
small river. Read the poem silently first. After the first reading, the teacher will
make you listen to a recording of the poem. What do you think the poem is all
about?
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 thorpes, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
10 To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
15 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
20 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 for ever.

25 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
30 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
35 For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
40 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.

45 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
50 To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
About the Poet
Lord Tennyson (1809-92) was born in Lincolnshire. Poet Laureate for over 40 years, Tennyson is representative of the Victorian age. His skilled craftsmanship and noble ideals retained a large audience for poetry in an age when the novel was engrossing more and more readers. Tennyson's real contribution lies in his shorter poems like The Lady of Shallot, The Princess, Ulysses, The Palace of Art etc. His fame rests on his perfect control of sound, the synthesis of sound and meaning, and the union of visual and musical.

Answer 1

Do it yourself