Poems by Rupert Brooke

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Tiare Tahiti

Mamua, when our laughter ends,

And hearts and bodies, brown as white,

Are dust about the doors of friends,

Or scent ablowing down the night,

Then, oh! then, the wise agree,

Comes our immortality.

Mamua, there waits a land

Hard for us to understand.

Rupert Brooke

The Wayfarers

Is it the hour? We leave this resting-place

Made fair by one another for a while.

Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;

The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.

Ah! the long road! and you so far away!

Oh, I'll remember! but . . . each crawling day

Will pale a little your scarlet lips, each mile

Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.

Rupert Brooke

Dawn

Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat.

Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar.

We have been here for ever: even yet

A dim watch tells two hours, two aeons, more.

The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet

With a night's foetor. There are two hours more;

Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours yet.

Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore. . . .

Rupert Brooke

The Chilterns

Your hands, my dear, adorable,

Your lips of tenderness

— Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,

Three years, or a bit less.

It wasn't a success.

Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,

Quit of my youth and you,

The Roman road to Wendover

Rupert Brooke

A Channel Passage

The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick

My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew

I must think hard of something, or be sick;

And could think hard of only one thing — YOU!

You, you alone could hold my fancy ever!

And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole.

Now there's a choice — heartache or tortured liver!

A sea-sick body, or a you-sick soul!

Rupert Brooke

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 of the way.

Thirsty for dark, you feel the long-limbed train

Throb, stretch, thrill motion, slide, pull out and sway,

Strain for the far, pause, draw to strength again. . . .

Rupert Brooke

The Way That Lovers Use

The way that lovers use is this;

They bow, catch hands, with never a word,

And their lips meet, and they do kiss,

— So I have heard.

They queerly find some healing so,

And strange attainment in the touch;

There is a secret lovers know,

— I have read as much.

Rupert Brooke

Dining-Room Tea

When you were there, and you, and you,

Happiness crowned the night; I too,

Laughing and looking, one of all,

I watched the quivering lamplight fall

On plate and flowers and pouring tea

And cup and cloth; and they and we

Flung all the dancing moments by

With jest and glitter. Lip and eye

Rupert Brooke

Sonnet V The South Seas

Not with vain tears, when we're beyond the sun,

We'll beat on the substantial doors, nor tread

Those dusty high-roads of the aimless dead

Plaintive for Earth; but rather turn and run

Down some close-covered by-way of the air,

Some low sweet alley between wind and wind,

Stoop under faint gleams, thread the shadows, find

Some whispering ghost-forgotten nook, and there

Rupert Brooke

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;

Rupert Brooke

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 at my crown of blasphemy,

But Love was as a flame about my feet;

Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat

Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry —

Rupert Brooke

A Memory (From A Sonnet- Sequence)

Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept

Softly along the dim way to your room,

And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,

And holiness about you as you slept.

I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept

About my head, and held it. I had rest

Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.

I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.

Rupert Brooke