Selected Poems

by Rupert Brooke

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781508568292
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	02/21/2015
Pages:	50
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.10(d)

Read an Excerpt

Kindliness WHEN love has changed to kindliness— Oh, love, our hungry lips, that press So tight that Time's an old god's dream Nodding in heaven, and whisper stuff Seven million years were not enough To think on after, make it seem Less than the breath of children playing, A blasphemy scarce worth the saying, A sorry jest, " When love has grown To kindliness—to kindliness ! " . . . And yet—the best that cither's known Will change, and wither, and be less, At last, than comfort, or its own Remembrance. And when some caress Tendered in habit (once a flame All heaven sang out to) wakes the shame Unworded, in the steady eyes We'll have,—that day, what shall we do ? Being so noble, kill the two Who've reached their second-best ? Being wise, Break cleanly off, and get away, Follow down other windier skies New lures, alone ? Or shall we stay, Since this is all we've known, content In the lean twilight of such day, And not remember, not lament f That time when all is over, and Hand never flinches, brushing hand ; And blood lies quiet, for all you're near ; And it's but spoken words we hear, Where trumpets sang ; when the mere skies Are stranger and nobler than your eyes ; And flesh is flesh, was flame before ; And infinite hungers leap no more In the chance swaying of your dress ; And love has changed to kindliness. The Voice SAFE in the magic of my woods I lay, and watched the dying light. Faint in the pale high solitudes, And washed with rain and veiled by night, Silver and blue and green were showing. And the dark woods grew darker still; And birds were hushed ; and peace was growing; And quietness crept up the hill; And no wind was blowing . . . And I knew That thiswas the hour of knowing, And the night and the woods and you Were one together, and I sh...