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"New National Fourth Reader"



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.


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