Lyric Poem · Nature
A Farewell
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“A Farewell” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — quilloak.com/poems/a-farewell
Quick facts
- Poem
- A Farewell
- Poet
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Sad
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 16 lines · 4 quatrains
- Line length
- Lines run 7-8 syllables (median 8), consistent with tetrameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
- Refrain
- “For ever and for ever.”Repeated lines act as the poem's hinge or drumbeat.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892
- Source record
- PoetryDBA Farewell by alfred-lord-tennyson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 15fe949840235d1c…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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