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.

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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.

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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.

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I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.

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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 silver water-break 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.