Published in 1855 in the volume, _Maud and other Poems_. _The Brook_ is
one of the most successful of Tennyson's idylls, and is in no degree, as
the earlier poem _Dora_ was, a Wordsworthian imitation. The brook
itself, which bickers in and out of the story as in its native valley,
was not the Somersby brook, which does not now "to join the brimming
river," but pours into the sea. The graylings and other details are
imaginary. A literary source has been suggested (see Dr. Sykes' note) in
Goethe's poem, _Das Bächlein_, which begins:
klar, and clear,
sinn; and think;
du hin? goest thou?
Du Bachlein, silberhell und Thou little brook, silver bright Du eilst
vorüber immerdar, Thou hastenest ever onward, Am Ufer steh' ich,
sinn' und I stand on the brink, think Wo kommst du her? Wo gehst
Whence comest thou? Where
The Brook replies:
Schoss, dark rocks,
Moss'. and moss.
Ich komm' aus dunkler Felsen I come from the bosom of the Mein Lauf
geht über Blum' und My course goes over flowers
The charm of the poem lies in its delicate characterization, in its tone
of pensive memory suffused with cheerfulness, and especially in the song
of the brook, about which the action revolves. Twenty years have wrought
many changes in the human lives of the story, but the brook flows on
forever, and Darnley bridge still spans the brimming river, and shows for
only change a richer growth of ivy.