'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 Philip's 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 Philip's 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-**** 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 chatter'd more than brook or bird;
Old Philip; all about the fields you caught
His weary daylong chirping, like the dry
High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. [grig = cricket - m.]

    I wind about, and in and out,
    With here a blossom sailing,
    And here and there a ***** 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.

Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway,
  The tender blossom flutter down,
  Unloved, that beech will gather brown,
This maple burn itself away;

Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair,
  Ray round with flames her disk of seed,
  And many a rose-carnation feed
With summer spice the humming air;

Unloved, by many a sandy bar,
  The brook shall babble down the plain,
  At noon or when the lesser wain
Is twisting round the polar star;

Uncared for, gird the windy grove,
  And flood the haunts of hern and crake;
  Or into silver arrows break
The sailing moon in creek and cove;

Till from the garden and the wild
  A fresh association blow,
  And year by year the landscape grow
Familiar to the stranger's child;

As year by year the labourer tills
  His wonted glebe, or lops the glades;
  And year by year our memory fades
From all the circle of the hills.

I remember being in elementary,(a)
I was constantly bored with the(b)
Drivel. Learn what they teach,(b)
Never mind differences, Jamie;(a)
                  

  Just memorise the drill.

           I remember the Spelling Bee,(c)
          They were impressed by me.(c)

They thought it strange to go(d)
So well, since I slept or wrote(d)
Thru ev'ry class; never to note.(d)

"How in the Hell is it that you won(e)
At Spelling, I was State Champion(e)
At my old school!??! Teach said you(f)
Do your thing; you haven't a clue;(f)
               I came in 2nd to you?!!?"(f)

I said, "It takes a simple mind to learn(g)
Simply, therefore you were not beaten(h)
By me: but rather by Arrogance, Hern."(g)


    What does that  mean,  asked  she.

Ihopeby now Hern has figured how
  A writer obsessed in each class, Recess,
At Lunch, on the Cheese Wagon a bunch,
Won Spelling Bees -Still stuck on studies.

.


This very far which mine eyne doth
                           vision
          the many furrowed shes
                             ouch
         whom hath cramped mine live
                        mine wild
          for the feral precocious
                             yikes
              nubile nymphettes
            the rapid flap of their
                      new vibrissa
      unswervingly mine bearing

                       To mine left
                    the sophic hers
                      to mine right
                  enraptured with I
                          mine me
            hern germinal corporeal
                               too
          hern precocious expressive

                              Ahhh
                  ­       dwindling
      the hemp which the sophic shes
                              twist
            whilst mine cerebral spills
                                too
                      ­ the young shes
                              swell