Rupert Brooke Quotes

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed.
(I'm flogging a dead horse w/ this one but this is the 1st time I've even seen this quotes feature! I just wanted to post something.)

All the day I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love ...

I thought when love for you died, I should die.
It's dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on.

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.

I know what things are good: friendship and work and conversation. These I shall have.

That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the lonely gloom;
And watched the moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room.
All night I could not sleep.

A kiss makes the heart young again a wipes out all the tears.

There's little comfort in the wise

And in that Heaven of all their wish, there shall be no more land, say fish

All the little emptiness of love!

For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile.

The Call

Out of the nothingness of sleep,
The slow dreams of Eternity,
There was a thunder on the deep:
I came, because you called to me.

I broke the Night's primeval bars,
I dared the old abysmal curse,
And flashed through ranks of frightened stars
Suddenly on the universe!

The eternal silences were broken;
Hell became Heaven as I passed. --
What shall I give you as a token,
A sign that we have met, at last?

I'll break and forge the stars anew,
Shatter the heavens with a song;
Immortal in my love for you,
Because I love you, very strong.

Your mouth shall mock the old and wise,
Your laugh shall fill the world with flame,
I'll write upon the shrinking skies
The scarlet splendour of your name,

Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder
Dies in her ultimate mad fire,
And darkness falls, with scornful thunder,
On dreams of men and men's desire.

Then only in the empty spaces,
Death, walking very silently,
Shall fear the glory of our faces
Through all the dark infinity.

So, clothed about with perfect love,
The eternal end shall find us one,
Alone above the Night, above
The dust of the dead gods, alone.

These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

It's all a terrible tragedy. And yet, in it's details, it's great fun. And - apart from the tragedy - I've never felt happier or better in my life than in those days in Belgium.

The Hill
Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old ... " "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
- "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"
"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!" ... Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
- And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Down the blue night the unending columns press
In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow

We always love those who admire us; we do not always love those whom we admire.

And in my flower-beds,
I think,
Smile the carnation
and the pink.

Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Love sells the proud heart's citadel to fate.

i think, if you had loved me when i wanted;
if I'd looked up one day, and seen your eyes,
And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted,
And your brown face, that's full of pity and wise,
Flushed suddenly; the white godhead in new fear
Intolerably so struggling, and so shamed;
Most holy and far, if you'd come all too near,
If earth had seen Earth's 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 have given so much,
To have seen and known you, this they might not do.
One last shame's spared me, one black word's unspoken;
And I'm alone; and you have not awoken.

But the best I've known
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.

The worst of slaves is he whom passion rules.

Oh! death will find me long before I tire of watching you.

My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days

War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;
Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?

A book may be compared to your neighbour: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early

Yet, behind the night, Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar, Some white tremendous daybreak.

Love is a flame; - we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: - and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: - we have taught the world to die.

But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

Canada is a live country - live, but not, like the States, kicking.

Proud, then, clear-eyed and laughing, go to greet Death as a friend!

The cool kindliness of sheets, that soon smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss of blankets.

Just now the lilac is in bloom
All before my little room.

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
All the great courts were quiet in the sun,
And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown
Over the glassy pavement, and begun
To creep within the dusty council-halls.
An idle wind blew round an empty throne
And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.

One may not doubt that, somehow Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And sure, the reverent eye must see A purpose in Liquidity.

Spend in pure converse our eternal day;
Think each in each, immediately wise;
Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say
What this tumultuous body now denies;
And feel, who have laid our groping hands away;
And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.

I shall desire and I shall find
The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the mellow wind
That soothes the darkening shires.
And laughter, and inn-fires.

Spend the glittering moonlight there
Pursuing down the soundless deep
Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair,
Or floating lazy, half-asleep.
Dive and double and follow after,
Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,
With lips that fade, and human laughter
And faces individual,
Well this side of Paradise! ...
There's little comfort in the wise.