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LESSON LX.

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_.

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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.

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.

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Directions for Reading.--Point out the places in the poem where two
lines should be joined in reading.

Mark the _inflection_ of the following lines.

"I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,