POEMS BY RUPERT BROOKE Author:RUPERT BROOKE Poems by Rupert Brooke - 1915 - CONTENTS -- W -- 1908-1911 -- SONNE T A Oh Death will find me, long before I tire I I SONNE T I said I splendidly loved you its not true I 2 SUCCESS I3 i p I - c I o ntinued S THE VOICE DINING-ROO TE M A THE GODDES I S N THE WOOD A CHANNE P L A SSAGE VICTORY DAY AND NIGHT EXPERIMENTS CHORIAMBICS-I CHORIAMBICS-I1 ,... more » DESERTION PAGE 51 SONNET Oh Death will find me, long before I tire Of watching you and swing me suddenly Into the sliade and loneliness and mire Of the last land There, waiting patiently, One day, I think, Ill feel a cool wind blowing, See a slow light across the Stygian tide, And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing, And tremble. And I shall know that you have died, And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream, Pass, light as ever, through the lightlesa host, Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam-Most individual and bewildering ghost -And turn, and toss your brown delightful head Amusedly, among the ancient Dead. SONNET I said I splendidly loved you its not true. Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea. On gods or fools the high risk falls--on you-The clean clear bitter-sweet thats not for me. Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist. Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell. But-there are wanderers in the middle mist, Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tell Whether they love at all, or, loving, whom An old songs lady, a fool in fancy dress, Or hantoms, or their own face on the gloom d r love of Love, or from hearts loneliness. Pleasures not theirs, nor pain. They doubt, and sigh, And do not love at all. Of these am I. SUCCESS -. I think if you had loved me when I wanted If Id looked up one day, and seen your eyes, And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted, And our brown face, thats full of pity and wise, Fluehe l suddenly the white godhead in new fear Intolerably so struggling, and so shamed Most holy and far, if youd come all too near, If earth had seen Earths lordliest wild limbs tamed, Shaken, and trapped, and shivering, for my touch-Myself should I have slain or that foul you But this the strange gods, who had given so much, To have seen and known you, this they might not do. One last shames spared me, one black words unspoken And Im alone and you have not awoken. DUST When the white flame in us is gone, And we that lost the worlds delight Stiffen in darkness, left alone . To crumble in our separate night When your swift hair is quiet in death, And through the lips corruption thrust Has stilled the labour of my breath-When we are dust, when we are dust -Not dead, not undesirous yet, --Still sentient, still unsatisfied, Well ride the air, and shine, and flit, Around the places where we died, And dance as dust before the sun, And light of foot, and unconfined, Hurry from road to road, and run About the errands of the wind. And every mote, on earth or air, Will speed and gleam, down later days, And like a secret pilgrim fare By eager and invisible ways, Nor ever rest, nor ever lie, Till, beyond thinking, out of view, One mote of all the dust thats I Shall meet one atom that was you...« less