Rupert+Brooke


 * 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.

1914 II. Safety
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">He who has found our hid security, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">We have found safety with all things undying, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Secretly armed against all death's endeavour; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 3pt;">1914 III. The Dead
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">T <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">here's none of these so lonely and poor of old, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">These laid the world away; poured out the red <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">That men call age; and those who would have been, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Their sons, they gave, their immortality. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Honour has come back, as a king, to earth, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And paid his subjects with a royal wage; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And Nobleness walks in our ways again; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And we have come into our heritage.

<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 3pt;">1914 IV. The Dead
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And sunset, and the colours of the earth. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">These had seen movement, and heard music; known <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">A width, a shining peace, under the night.

<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 12pt 0cm 3pt;">1914 V. The Soldier
<span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">If I should die, think only this of me: <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">That there's some corner of a foreign field <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">That is for ever England. There shall be <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">A <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">A body of England's, breathing English air, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And think, this heart, all evil shed away, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">A pulse in the eternal mind, no less <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, <span style="background: white; font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; line-height: 150%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.