English poet (1887-1915)
They say that the Dead die not, but remain
Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.
I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,
In wise majestic melancholy train,
And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,
And men, coming and going on the earth.
RUPERT BROOKE
Clouds
Fish say, they have their stream and pond;
But is there anything beyond?
RUPERT BROOKE
Heaven
Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night.
RUPERT BROOKE
Letters from America
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?
RUPERT BROOKE
"The Old Vicarage, Grantchester"
Then from the sad west turning wearily,
I saw the pines against the white north sky.
Very beautiful, and still, and bending over
Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky.
RUPERT BROOKE
"Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening"
A man's life is of many flashing moments, and yet one stream; a nation's flows through all its citizens, and yet is more than they.
RUPERT BROOKE
Letters from America
But there's a wisdom in women, of more than they have known,
And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own.
RUPERT BROOKE
There's Wisdom in Women
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.
RUPERT BROOKE
"Day That I Have Loved"
There's little comfort in the wise.
RUPERT BROOKE
Tiare Tahiti
Helpless I lie.
And around me the feet of thy watchers tread.
There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head,
An intolerable radiance of wings....
RUPERT BROOKE
"Sleeping Out: Full Moon"
From inland
Leaps a gay fragment of some mocking tune,
That tinkles and laughs and fades along the sand
And dies between the seawall and the sea.
RUPERT BROOKE
"Seaside"
And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink.
RUPERT BROOKE
"The Old Vicarage, Grantchester"
If I should die think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.
RUPERT BROOKE
"The Soldier"
My American friends were full of kindly scorn when I announced that I was going to Canada. "A country without a soul!" they cried, and pressed books upon me, to befriend me through that Philistine bleakness.
RUPERT BROOKE
Letters from America
Here in the dark, O heart;
Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,
And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;
Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart
From the dead best, the dear and old delight;
Throw down your dreams of immortality,
O faithful, O foolish lover!
RUPERT BROOKE
"Second Best"
Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate,
Where that comes in that shall not go again.
RUPERT BROOKE
"Love"
There comes an hour of evening when lower Broadway, the business end of the town, is deserted. And if, having felt yourself immersed in men and the frenzy of cities all day, you stand out in the street in this sudden hush, you will hear, like a strange questioning voice from another world, the melancholy boom of a foghorn, and realize that not half a mile away are the waters of the sea, and some great liner making its slow way out to the Atlantic. After that, the lights come out up-town, and the New York of theatres and vaudevilles and restaurants begins to roar and flare. The merciless lights throw a mask of unradiant glare on the human beings in the streets, making each face hard, set, wolfish, terribly blue. The chorus of voices becomes shriller. The buildings tower away into obscurity, looking strangely theatrical because lit from below. And beyond them soars the purple roof of the night.
RUPERT BROOKE
Letters from America