I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
Gordon xxx