what is the summary of poem The Brook

The Brook ' is a composition of Lord Alfred Tennyson whose fame rested on his perfect control of sound, the synthesis of sound and meaning, the union of pictorial and musical elements. The poem is about a brook which appears to be a symbol of life, which becomes the central theme of the composition. A dictionary would define a brook as a stream or a small river. The brook starts from the mountains most of the times. Suddenly after originating from there the brook rushes down. The later flow of the brook sees it sparkling bright because of the sun rays. The brook flows through a ground which have grass and flowerless plants. 'Bicker ' means to run rapidly or rush in a hurry. Thus, here the brook is said to flow down a valley making noisy sounds. This noisy movement full of vigour shows its hurry to reach its destination similar to man in his youth who is very energetic, lively, enthusiastic and full of vigour. The poet has shown the swift flow of the brook by using the words like 'hurry down ', 'slip between ', etc. The brook flows down many hills, many being emphasized by the word 'thirty ' and narrow hilltops. The brook flows down past many villages, where the 'thorp ', an old English word has been used for 'village '. Here, again, the poet tries to make the line creative by using 'Twenty '-not literally 'Twenty villages ' and a little town as well. It flows through fields, uncultivated lands, and lands with different stems, leaves and flowers of various colours of pink, purple and white. In this early phase of life, the brook has a very fast motion and it overcomes all the obstacles, stones and pebbles in its way. This nature of the brook can be compared to man in his youth when he is enthusiastic and is ready to face all the challenges that come in his way. After flowing by Philip 's farm, the brook joins an overflowing river. Here, the brook significantly describes the life cycle of human being. It exemplifies the fact that men have a short lifespan and their cycle of arrival and departure goes on forever. However, in this aspect, the brook is different from man, having an immortal life because of which it goes on 'forever '. The noise made by the quick flow of the brook is what makes it ‘chatter’. While the river wanders in a wild and natural course, it makes a natural swirling, chattering noise. Brimming here means to be abundantly filled with water, to the point of overflow. The poet has used ‘brimming’ to indicate the amount of water in the river which the brook joins finally. It creates a picture of immense volume and abundance. The brook flows in curves because at one point the path curves. The meandering flow makes it wear away. 'Slip ', 'slide ', 'gloom ', 'glance ', 'steal ', 'slide ', 'move ', etc. are words which signify the various movements of the brook. The parallelism between the brook 's journey and a man 's life is evident in the lines where the brook is shown to take a lot of things along with it like blossoms, silt, gravel and fish which is quite similar to the way man meets and accompanies people and moves forward in life with the people he meets, in the journey of his life. The last two lines very well explains the central theme of the poem, that is, the fact that human life is mortal while the beauty of nature remains eternal. The brook says in these lines that human lives come to an end and another generation begins. However, the flow of the brook is continuous and goes on forever. The immortality and permanence of the brook has been compared and contrasted with human life, which is mortal and finishes after a certain span of time.