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

Rupert Brooke

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“The CallOut 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 starsSuddenly 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 skiesThe scarlet splendour of your name,Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunderDies 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 facesThrough all the dark infinity.So, clothed about with perfect love,The eternal end shall find us one,Alone above the Night, aboveThe dust of the dead gods, alone.”


“FailureBecause God put His adamantine fateBetween 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 beatThrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry --All the great courts were quiet in the sun,And full of vacant echoes: moss had grownOver the glassy pavement, and begunTo creep within the dusty council-halls.An idle wind blew round an empty throneAnd stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.”


“I said I splendidly loved you; it’s not true.Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.On gods or fools the high risk falls–on you–The clean clear bitter-sweet that’s not for me.Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.But–there are wanderers in the middle mist,Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tellWhether they love at all, or, loving, whom:An old song’s lady, a fool in fancy dress,Or phantoms, or their own face on the gloom;For love of Love, or from heart’s loneliness.Pleasure’s not theirs, nor pain. They doubt, and sigh,And do not love at all. Of these am I”


“Spend the glittering moonlight therePursuing down the soundless deepLimbs 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 laughterAnd faces individual,Well this side of Paradise! . . .There's little comfort in the wise.”


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


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