Rupert Brooke
Success
I think if you had loved me when I wanted; If I’d looked up one day, and seen your eyes, And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted, And your brown face, that’s full
Heaven
Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat’ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there
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
Sleeping Out: Full Moon
They sleep within. . . . I cower to the earth, I waking, I only. High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely. We have slept too long, who can hardly win
Blue Evening
My restless blood now lies a-quiver, Knowing that always, exquisitely, This April twilight on the river Stirs anguish in the heart of me. For the fast world in that rare glimmer Puts on the
Victory
All night the ways of Heaven were desolate, Long roads across a gleaming empty sky. Outcast and doomed and driven, you and I, Alone, serene beyond all love or hate, Terror or triumph, were
Failure
Because God put His adamantine fate Between my sullen heart and its desire, I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate, Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire. Earth shuddered
Choriambics I
Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring; Ah! not now should you come, now
Song
“Oh! Love,” they said, “is King of Kings, And Triumph is his crown. Earth fades in flame before his wings, And Sun and Moon bow down.” But that, I knew, would never do; And
The Song of the Pilgrims
(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.) What light of unremembered skies Hast thou relumed within our eyes, Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? .
Unfortunate
Heart, you are restless as a paper scrap That’s tossed down dusty pavements by the wind; Saying, “She is most wise, patient and kind. Between the small hands folded in her lap Surely a
Jealousy
When I see you, who were so wise and cool, Gazing with silly sickness on that fool You’ve given your love to, your adoring hands Touch his so intimately that each understands, I know,
The Night Journey
Hands and lit faces eddy to a line; The dazed last minutes click; the clamour dies. Beyond the great-swung arc o’ the roof, divine, Night, smoky-scarv’d, with thousand coloured eyes Glares the imperious mystery
In Examination
Lo! from quiet skies In through the window my Lord the Sun! And my eyes Were dazzled and drunk with the misty gold, The golden glory that drowned and crowned me Eddied and swayed
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