The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke. Brooke Rupert

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1905–1908

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      Here in the dark, O heart;

       Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,

       And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;

       Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart

       From the dead best, the dear and old delight;

       Throw down your dreams of immortality,

       O faithful, O foolish lover!

       Here's peace for you, and surety; here the one

       Wisdom—the truth!—"All day the good glad sun

       Showers love and labour on you, wine and song;

       The greenwood laughs, the wind blows, all day long

       Till night." And night ends all things.

       Then shall be

       No lamp relumed in heaven, no voices crying,

       Or changing lights, or dreams and forms that hover!

       (And, heart, for all your sighing,

       That gladness and those tears are over, over. …)

       And has the truth brought no new hope at all,

       Heart, that you're weeping yet for Paradise?

       Do they still whisper, the old weary cries?

       "'MID YOUTH AND SONG, FEASTING AND CARNIVAL,

       THROUGH LAUGHTER, THROUGH THE ROSES, AS OF OLD

       COMES DEATH, ON SHADOWY AND RELENTLESS FEET,

       DEATH, UNAPPEASABLE BY PRAYER OR GOLD;

       DEATH IS THE END, THE END!"

       Proud, then, clear-eyed and laughing, go to greet

       Death as a friend!

       Exile of immortality, strongly wise,

       Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes

       To what may lie beyond it. Sets your star,

       O heart, for ever! Yet, behind the night,

       Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar,

       Some white tremendous daybreak. And the light,

       Returning, shall give back the golden hours,

       Ocean a windless level, Earth a lawn

       Spacious and full of sunlit dancing-places,

       And laughter, and music, and, among the flowers,

       The gay child-hearts of men, and the child-faces

       O heart, in the great dawn!

Day That I Have Loved

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      Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes,

       And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands.

       The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies.

       I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands,

       Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea's making

       Mist-garlanded, with all grey weeds of the water crowned.

       There you'll be laid, past fear of sleep or hope of waking;

       And over the unmoving sea, without a sound,

       Faint hands will row you outward, out beyond our sight,

       Us with stretched arms and empty eyes on the far-gleaming

       And marble sand. …

       Beyond the shifting cold twilight,

       Further than laughter goes, or tears, further than dreaming,

       There'll be no port, no dawn-lit islands! But the drear

       Waste darkening, and, at length, flame ultimate on the deep.

       Oh, the last fire—and you, unkissed, unfriended there!

       Oh, the lone way's red ending, and we not there to weep!

       (We found you pale and quiet, and strangely crowned with flowers,

       Lovely and secret as a child. You came with us,

       Came happily, hand in hand with the young dancing hours,

       High on the downs at dawn!) Void now and tenebrous,

       The grey sands curve before me. …

       From the inland meadows,

       Fragrant of June and clover, floats the dark, and fills

       The hollow sea's dead face with little creeping shadows,

       And the white silence brims the hollow of the hills.

       Close in the nest is folded every weary wing,

       Hushed all the joyful voices; and we, who held you dear,

       Eastward we turn and homeward, alone, remembering …

       Day that I loved, day that I loved, the Night is here!

Sleeping Out: Full Moon

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