1914, and Other Poems

Name: 1914, and Other Poems
Author: Brooke, Rupert

Brooke, Rupert

English poetry -- 20th century

THE BUSY HEART                                  41
 LOVE                                            42
 UNFORTUNATE                                     43
 THE CHILTERNS                                   44
 HOME                                            46
 THE NIGHT JOURNEY                               47
 SONG                                            49
 BEAUTY AND BEAUTY                               50
 THE WAY THAT LOVERS USE                         51
 MARY AND GABRIEL                                52
 THE FUNERAL OF YOUTH                            55


 GRANTCHESTER

 THE OLD VICARAGE, GRANTCHESTER                  59




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.




II. SAFETY


 Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
   He who has found our hid security,
 Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
   And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?'
 We have found safety with all things undying,
   The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,
 The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,
   And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.
 We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.
   We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.
 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.




III. THE DEAD


 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.
 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.

 Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
   Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
 Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
   And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
 And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
   And we have come into our heritage.




IV. THE DEAD

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

1914, and Other Poems

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