1914

I. PEACE

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,

And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,

With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,

To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,

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;

Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there

But only agony, and that has ending;

And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

II. SAFETY

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest

He who has found our hid security,

Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,

And heard our word, "Who is so safe as we?"

We have found safety with all things undying,
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.

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;

And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

III. THE DEAD

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!

There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,

But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.

These laid the world away; poured out the red

Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,

Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain,

Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,

And paid his subjects with a royal wage;

And Nobleness walks in our ways again;

And we have come into our heritage.

IV. THE DEAD

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,

Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.

The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,

And sunset, and the colours of the earth.

These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter

And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,

Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance

And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white

Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,

A width, a shining peace, under the night.

V. THE SOLDIER

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

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.

Rupert Brooke

The Chilterns

Your hands, my dear, adorable,

Your lips of tenderness

--Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,

Three years, or a bit less.

It wasn't a success.

Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,

Quit of my youth and you,

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.

What's left behind I shall not find,

The splendor and the pain;

The splash of sun, the shouting wind,

And the brave sting of rain,

I may not meet again.

But the years, that take the best away,

Give something in the end;

And a better friend than love have they,

For none to mar or mend,

That have themselves to friend.

I shall desire and I shall find

The best of my desires;

The autumn road, the mellow wind

That soothes the darkening shires.

And laughter, and inn-fires.

White mist about the black hedgerows,

The slumbering Midland plain,

The silence where the clover grows,

And the dead leaves in the lane,

Certainly, these remain.

And I shall find some girl perhaps,

And a better one than you,

With eyes as wise, but kindlier,

With lips as soft, but true.

And I daresay she will do.

Rupert Brooke

Retrospect

In your arms was still delight,

Quiet as a street at night;

And thoughts of you, I do remember,

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.

In your stupidity I found

The sweet hush after a sweet sound.

All about you was the light

That dims the graying end of night;

Desire was the unrisen sun,

Joy the day not yet begun,

With tree whispering to tree,

Without wind, quietly.

Wisdom slept within your hair,

And Long-suffering was there,

And, in the flowing of your dress,

Undiscerning Tenderness.

And when you thought, it seemed to me,

Infinitely, and like a sea,

About the sleight world you had known

Your vast unconsciousness was thrown. . . .

O haven without wave or tide!

Silence, in which all songs have died!

Holy book, where all hearts are still!

And home at length, under the hill!

O mother quiet, breasts of peace,

Where love itself would faint and cease!

O infinite deep I never knew,

I would come back, come back to you;

Find you, as a pool unstirred,

Kneel down by you, and never a word;

Lay my head, and nothing said,

In your hands, ungarlanded.

And a long watch you would keep;

And I should sleep, and I should sleep!

Rupert Brooke