LESSON LX.
coot, a water-bird.
hern (her'on), a wading bird.
ed'dying, moving in small circles.
mal'low, a
kind of plant.
bick'er, move quickly; quarrel.
fal'low, plowed land.
gray'ling, a kind of
fish.
cress'es, a kind of water-plant.
sal'ly, a rushing or bursting forth.
thorps, villages.
bram'bly, full of rough shrubs.
THE BROOK.
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 may 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 bank I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-wood 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.
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 stars
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 forever.
Directions for Reading.—Point out the places in the poem where two lines should be joined in reading.
Mark the inflection of the following lines.
"I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows."
"For men may come, and men may go,
But I go on forever."
Read the last two lines, and state whether the inflected words are also emphatic words.
Find a similar example of inflection and emphasis upon the same words in the last stanza of Lesson XXXVI.
Language Lesson.—Let pupils explain the meaning of the following expressions.
Join the brimming river.
Netted sunbeam.