From the recording Cosmic Summer Sojourn
Poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson, Music and Arrangement by me. This is one of my favorite songs.
"Listen to the voice of the valley stream . . .just as rocks and tree roots and water spray embellish nature, then we are able to accept whatever happens and live like flowing water, without clinging to anything." Shundo Aoyama, Zen Seeds
Lyrics
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 slip, I slide, I gleam, I glance among my skimming swallows
I make the netted sunbeams dance against my sandy shallows
I chatter, chatter as I flow to join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go
But I go on forever, ever, 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 snowy flake Upon me as I travel
With many a silvery waterbrake 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, ever, 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 murmur under moon and stars in brambly wildnernesses
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, ever, I go on forever