The Poetry Corner

The Brook

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Here, by this brook, we parted; I to the East And he for Italytoo latetoo late: One whom the strong sons of the world despise; For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share, And mellow metres more than cent for cent; Nor could he understand how money breeds, Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could make The thing that is not as the thing that is. O had he lived! In our schoolbooks we say, Of those that held their heads above the crowd, They flourishd then or then; but life in him Could scarce be said to flourish, only touchd On such a time as goes before the leaf, When all the wood stands in a mist of green, And nothing perfect: yet the brook he loved, For which, in branding summers of Bengal, Or evn the sweet half-English Neilgherry air I panted, seems, as I re-listen to it, Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy, To me that loved him; for O brook, he says, O babbling brook, says Edmund in his rhyme, Whence come you? and the brook, why not? replies. 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 Philips farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge, It has more ivy; there the river; and there Stands Philips farm where brook and river meet. 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 for ever. But Philip chatterd more than brook or bird; Old Philip; all about the fields you caught His weary daylong chirping, like the dry High-elbowd grigs that leap in summer grass. 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 for ever. O darling Katie Willows, his one child! A maiden of our century, yet most meek; A daughter of our meadows, yet not coarse; Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand; Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell Divides threefold to show the fruit within. Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn, Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, James Willows, of one name and heart with her. For here I came, twenty years backthe week Before I parted with poor Edmund; crost By that old bridge which, half in ruins then, Still makes a hoary eyebrow for the gleam Beyond it, where the waters marrycrost, Whistling a random bar of Bonny Doon, And pushd at Philips garden-gate. The gate, Half-parted from a weak and scolding hinge, Stuck; and he clamourd from a casement, Run To Katie somewhere in the walks below, Run, Katie! Katie never ran: she moved To meet me, winding under woodbine bowers, A little flutterd, with her eyelids down, Fresh apple-blossom, blushing for a boon. What was it? less of sentiment than sense Had Katie; not illiterate; nor of those Who dabbling in the fount of fictive tears, And nursed by mealy-mouthd philanthropies, Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. She told me. She and James had quarrelld. Why? What cause of quarrel? None, she said, no cause; James had no cause: but when I prest the cause, I learnt that James had flickering jealousies Which angerd her. Who angerd James? I said. But Katie snatchd her eyes at once from mine, And sketching with her slender pointed foot Some figure like a wizard pentagram On garden gravel, let my query pass Unclaimd, in flushing silence, till I askd If James were coming. Coming every day, She answerd, ever longing to explain, But evermore her father came across With some long-winded tale, and broke him short; And James departed vext with him and her. How could I help her? Would Iwas it wrong? (Claspt hands and that petitionary grace Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke) O would I take her father for one hour, For one half-hour, and let him talk to me! And even while she spoke, I saw where James Made toward us, like a wader in the surf, Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow-sweet. O Katie, what I sufferd for your sake! For in I went, and calld old Philip out To show the farm: full willingly he rose He led me thro the short sweet-smelling lanes Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went. He praised his land, his horses, his machines; He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs; He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens; His pigeons, who in session on their roofs Approved him, bowing at their own deserts: Then from the plaintive mothers teat he took Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, And naming those, his friends, for whom they were: Then crost the common into Darnley chase To show Sir Arthurs deer. In copse and fern Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech, He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said: That was the four-year-old I sold the Squire. And there he told a long long-winded tale Of how the Squire had seen the colt at grass, And how it was the thing his daughter wishd, And how he sent the bailiff to the farm To learn the price, and what the price he askd, And how the bailiff swore that he was mad, But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; He gave them line: and five days after that He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, Who then and there had offerd something more, But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; He knew the man; the colt would fetch its price; He gave them line: and how by chance at last (It might be May or April, he forgot, The last of April or the first of May) He found the bailiff riding by the farm, And, talking from the point, he drew him in, And there he mellowd all his heart with ale, Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand. Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, Poor fellow, could he help it? recommenced, And ran thro all the coltish chronicle, Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, Till, not to die a listener, I arose, And with me Philip, talking still; and so We turnd our foreheads from the falling sun, And following our own shadows thrice as long As when they followd us from Philips door, Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content Re-risen in Katies eyes, and all things well. 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 star: In brambly wildernesses: I linger by my shingly bars; 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 for ever. Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome Of Brunelleschi; sleeps in peace: and he, Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb: I scraped the lichen from it: Katie walks By the long wash of Australasian seas Far off, and holds her head to other stars, And breathes in April-autumns. All are gone. So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a stile In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing oer the brook A tonsured head in middle age forlorn, Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath Of tender air made tremble in the hedge The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings; And he lookd up. There stood a maiden near, Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell Divides threefold to show the fruit within: Then, wondering, askd her Are you from the farm? Yes answerd she. Pray stay a little pardon me; What do they call you? Katie. That were strange. What surname? Willows. No! That is my name. Indeed! and here he lookd so self-perplext, That Katie laughd, and laughing blushd, till he Laughd also, but as one before he wakes, Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream. Then looking at her; Too happy, fresh and fair, Too fresh and fair in our sad worlds best bloom, To be the ghost of one who bore your name About these meadows, twenty years ago. Have you not heard? said Katie, we came back. We bought the farm we tenanted before. Am I so like her? so they said on board. Sir, if you knew her in her English days, My mother, as it seems you did, the days That most she loves to talk of, come with me. My brother James is in the harvest-field But sheyou will be welcomeO, come in!