Rupert Brooke

“ In Grantchester their skins are white;
They bathe by day, they bathe by night;
The women there do all they ought;
The men observe the Rules of Thought.
They love the Good; they worship Truth;
They laugh uproariously in youth ”

“ Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,
Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.
Love, in you, went passing by,
Penetrative, remote, and rare,
Like a bird in the wide air,
And, as the bird, it left no trace
In the heaven of your face. ”

“ The laughing Winds and Rivers, and lithe Hours;
And Hope, the dewy-eyed; and sorrowing Song;—
Yes, with much woe and mourning general,
At dead Youth's funeral,
Even these were met once more together, all,
Who erst the fair and living Youth did know;
All, except only Love. Love had died long ago. ”

“ Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
⁠Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
⁠And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
⁠Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
⁠⁠Naught broken save this body, lost but breath ”

“ Oh, all you happy over the earth,
That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the lonely gloom;
And watched the moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room.
All night I could not sleep. ”

“ For, who decries the loved, decries the lover;
⁠Yet what man lauds the thing he's thrown away?
Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught,
⁠The more fool I, so great a fool to adore;
But if you're that high goddess once I thought,
⁠The more your godhead is, I lose the more.
Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever!
⁠Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you!
Most fair,—the blind has lost your face for ever! ”

“ They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
——Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .
But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
Nothing remains. ”

“ The Roman road to Wendover
⁠By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
⁠As a free man may do.
For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
⁠The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest things we do must lie
⁠Forgotten at the last;
⁠Even Love goes past. ”

“ Of song and flower and sky and face,
⁠And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,
Musing upon them; as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through,
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night. ”

“ The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. ”

“ And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
⁠A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
⁠⁠Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
⁠And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
⁠⁠In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. ”

“ Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and murder done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould. ”

“ Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted,
⁠I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
⁠I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
⁠And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain ”

“ Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,
⁠And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,
⁠As who would pray good for the world, but know
Their benediction empty as they bless.
They say that the Dead die not, but remain
⁠Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. ”

“ Plangent, hidden from eyes,
⁠Somewhere an eukaleli thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
⁠Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise ”

“ Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine ”

“ My heart all Winter lay so numb,
⁠The earth so dead and frore,
That I never thought the Spring would come,
⁠Or my heart wake any more.
But Winter's broken and earth has woken,
⁠And the small birds cry again ”

“ We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.
⁠We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
⁠Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;
Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall ”

“ The way that lovers use is this;
⁠They bow, catch hands, with never a word,
And their lips meet, and they do kiss,
⁠—So I have heard.
They queerly find some healing so,
⁠And strange attainment in the touch ”

“ THERE'S WISDOM IN WOMEN
"Oh love is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said,
"But love goes lightly over." I bowed her foolish head.
And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she ”

“ Her breath came quick as little flakes of snow.
Her hands crept up her breast. She did but know
It was not hers. She felt a trembling stir
Within her body, a will too strong for her
That held and filled and mastered all. With eyes
Closed, and a thousand soft short broken sighs,
She gave submission; fearful, meek, and glad. . . . ”

“ Is hung with steam's far-blowing livid streamers.
⁠Lost into God, as lights in light, we fly,
Grown one with will, end-drunken huddled dreamers.
⁠The white lights roar. The sounds of the world die. ”