The Brook

Alfred, Lord Tennyson published “The Brook” in 1886, during the Victorian era, a time when England’s natural beauty was being rapidly altered by growing cities and factories. The poem features a brook narrating its travels through the countryside. Vivid images of nature’s beauty flow through narrow stanzas that seem to mimic the movement of an actual brook. However, “The Brook”’s seemingly peaceful tone carries an underlying message about the fleeting nature of human life, conveyed by the refrain: “For men may come and men may go, / But I go on for ever.”