klar, and clear,
  sinn; and think;
  du hin? goest thou? 
Du Bachlein, silberhell und Thou little brook, silver bright Du eilst vorueber immerdar, Thou hastenest ever onward, Am Ufer steh’ ich, sinn’ und I stand on the brink, think Wo kommst du her?  Wo gehst Whence comest thou?  Where

The Brook replies: 

  Schoss, dark rocks,
  Moss’. and moss. 
Ich komm’ aus dunkler Felsen I come from the bosom of the Mein Lauf geht ueber Blum’ und My course goes over flowers

The charm of the poem lies in its delicate characterization, in its tone of pensive memory suffused with cheerfulness, and especially in the song of the brook, about which the action revolves.  Twenty years have wrought many changes in the human lives of the story, but the brook flows on forever, and Darnley bridge still spans the brimming river, and shows for only change a richer growth of ivy.

6.  HOW MONEY BREEDS, i.e. by producing interest at loan.

8.  THE THING THAT—­IS.  The poet’s function is thus described by Shakespeare: 

As imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

                        —­Midsummer Night’s Dream, V., 1.

17.  HALF-ENGLISH NEILGHERRY AIR.  The Neilgherry Hills are in Madras.  The climate resembles somewhat that of England.

37.  MORE IVY, i.e. than twenty years ago.

46.  WILLOW WEED AND MALLOW.  These are marsh plants.

93-95.  NOT ILLITERATE—­DEED. Katie was not without reading; but she was not of those who dabble in sentimental novels (the source of imaginary tears), and saturate themselves with unctuous charities; and whose powers to act are sapped by their excess of feeling.

105.  UNCLAIM’D.  As having nothing to do with her.  Katie resented the implication in the question of line 100.  She therefore disdained to answer it.  Messrs. Rowe and Webb hold that line 100 is a hint that the speaker, Lawrence Aylmer, was responsible for James’s fit of jealousy.

l25f.  Note the art with which the old man’s garrulousness is expressed.  The cautious precision of lines 151-152 is particularly apt.

176.  NETTED SUNBEAM.  The sunlight reflected like a net-work on the bottom.  The ripples on the surface would have this effect.

189.  ARNO.  A river in Italy which flows past Florence.

189-190.  DOME OF BRUNELLESCHI.  Brunelleschi (Broo-nei-les’-ke) was an Italian architect (1377-1444), who completed the cathedral of Santa Maria in Florence.  Its dome is of great size and impressiveness.

194.  BY—­SEAS.  Tennyson was fond of quoting this line as one of his roost successful individual lines.  Its rhythm is indeed sonorous.