The expression on and on like Tennyson’s brook describes something lengthy or seemingly interminable, like a long-winded speaker. The phrase is a reference to a lovely poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson about the course of a body of water. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Tennyson’s Brook”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. I had somebody ask me last week about the term to go on and on like Tennyson’s brook. Do you know this expression? It means to talk and talk and talk, just go on incessantly.
And so I did some digging around, and it’s a reference to a wonderful poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson called The Brook. The Brook. I’d love to share it with you.
Yes, please. I had to look up a couple of words in it. Coot, which is a kind of bird, and hern, which is like a heron. And one of the reasons I really like this poem is because of the sound of it. Think about a 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 30 hills I hurry down or slip between the ridges. By 20 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 banks I fret. By many a field and fallow and many a fairy foreland set with willow weed 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 water break 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.
There’s so many things I love about that poem, Grant, and it’s given us the phrase to go on and on like Tennyson’s brook. I have never heard that phrase before. I love that poem because of the sound. To me, it just sounds like brooks I’ve hiked alongside. And the other thing is that it’s sort of a metaphor for life. You know, it starts out real bubbly and full of energy, and toward the end, it’s kind of swirly and, you know, like a life winding down.
Now, you defined a couple words related to birds at the beginning, but there were two more that leapt out at me that we might… Thorpe. Thorpe, right, which means village or hamlet, and then grayling, which is a kind of fish. Yes. Go online and read it for yourself, The Brook by Alfred Lord Tennyson. And in the meantime, call us with your language questions, 877-929-9673.
