The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke

The Song of the Pilgrims

        (Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set,
        they sing this beneath the trees.)

   What light of unremembered skies
   Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
   Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
   A certain odour on the wind,
   Thy hidden face beyond the west,
   These things have called us; on a quest
   Older than any road we trod,
   More endless than desire. . . .
                                    Far God,
   Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills
   The soul with longing for dim hills
   And faint horizons!  For there come
   Grey moments of the antient dumb
   Sickness of travel, when no song
   Can cheer us; but the way seems long;
   And one remembers. . . .
                             Ah! the beat
   Of weary unreturning feet,
   And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .
   The fires we left are always burning
   On the old shrines of home.  Our kin
   Have built them temples, and therein
   Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell
   In little houses lovable,
   Being happy (we remember how!)
   And peaceful even to death. . . .
                                      O Thou,
   God of all long desirous roaming,
   Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,
   And crying after lost desire.
   Hearten us onward! as with fire
   Consuming dreams of other bliss.
   The best Thou givest, giving this
   Sufficient thing — to travel still
   Over the plain, beyond the hill,
   Unhesitating through the shade,
   Amid the silence unafraid,
   Till, at some sudden turn, one sees
   Against the black and muttering trees
   Thine altar, wonderfully white,
   Among the Forests of the Night.