The Brook originates from a mountainous source inhabited by water birds and flows through forests and hills, passing thirty slopes and over four dozen bridges on its way to a small town. It touches grassy lawns and forget-me-not flowers before joining a larger river near Phillip's farm. Tennyson uses exquisite language to convey the brook's musical sounds and movements through foliage and fields as it travels, as well as its reflection of sunlight and moonlight off its banks. The poem compares the brook's permanence to human impermanence.

1. THE BROOK
MADE BY : SHIVAM
PUNDHIR

2. LORD TENNYSON

3. 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, the union
of pictorial and musical.

4. I come from
haunts of coot
and hern;
I make a sudden
sally
And sparkle out
among the fern,
To bicker down
a valley.
haunts: places
frequently visited by
coot: a type of water
bird with a white
spot on the forehead
hern: heron,
(another kind of
water bird)
sally:emerge
suddenly
bicker: (here) flow
down with a lot of
noise

5. 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
lusty trout: a big
freshwater fish
grayling: another
type of fish

6. 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
thorpes: a
village

7. 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,
trebles: high
pitched tune

8. 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
eddying: spiral
movement of
water
babble: sound
made when one
talks gaily
fallow: land left
uncultivated to
regain fertility
foreland: piece of
land that extends
into the sea

9. 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.
mallow: plant
with hairy
stems and
leaves and pink,
white or purple
flowers

10. 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

11. To join the
brimming river,
For men may come
and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

12. 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
hazel: a small
tree or bush
with edible nuts
forget-me-nots
: a type of
flower

13. 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.

14. 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
shingly: covered with
small rounded pebbles
cresses: pungent leaved
plant like a cabbage

15. 'The Brook' is an example of
Tennyson's exquisite versification. He
had a rare capacity for creating music
out of simple words.
Tennyson makes the
brook narrate its history- the history
of its origin, its meandering and
uneven journey through forest and
hills and open spaces until it joins the
'brimming river'.
Summary

16. The Brook originates from a source on the
highlands filled with mountain forest cover,
where the wild birds of coot and hern are
found in plenty. Its rushing waters touches all
the ferns that grow on its banks till it reaches
the open valley. In its initial rushing journey,
the brook passes through the slopes of thirty
hills and flows beneath more than four dozen
bridges. Then it touches twenty different
villages before reaching a little town.

17. Before joining the main river, the brook passes by
Phillip's farm. As it comes rushing down the hills, its
waters produces different musical notes as it dashes
against the stony pebbles. The brook makes its
presence felt when it passes through the different
fields of uncultivated lands and many front lying
promontory lands where the weeping willows grow. It
winds about with immense power and its cool pleasant
waters brings all kinds of fresh water fish to a lively
activity.

18. The brook forms the foamy flake which is
accumulatd at the shores where gravels gather in
plenty, as it continues to travel down the hills.
Sometimes it overflows and incur upon the grassy
plots in the lawns. It even overflows to the gounds
of Hazel plants and touches the sweet forget-me-
nots. All the different sounds and movements that a
stream makes as it flows are charmingly conveyed
through the words used with an exquisite delicacies
of feeling. The trees on the banks, the fish playing
about, the blossoms floating on the water, the
stretches of darkness and light are vividly reflected
on the flowing verse. Above all, the spirit of joy and
freedom comes through eloquently.

19. Each morning when the sun rises, the rays and the
beams hit the waters and brightly reflect the shiny
dance of the active movement of the brook on the
sandy banks. When evening sets in and total darkness
covers the surroundings of the countryside, the flow of
the brook continues to murmur under the light of the
moon and stars. The effects of the brook on the shores
in the daytime is as much as in the night.
Tennyson significantly relates the brook to
human life to the sad reflection that man's life is
impermanent compared with the relative permanence
of a river (men may come and men may go, But I go on
forever).