a poem for sunday morning

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 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 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.

by alfred lord tennyson (1809 - 1892)

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 breakfast this morning, after first unitarian's service, consisted of food from yesterday's farmer's market: eggs, turkey sausage and sour cream coffee cake . .

 and then in the evening we had one of my favorite dinners: spaghetti with marinara sauce, but with faicco's italian chicken sausages rather than meatballs.