The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke

Retrospect

   In your arms was still delight,
   Quiet as a street at night;
   And thoughts of you, I do remember,
   Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,
   Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.
   Love, in you, went passing by,
   Penetrative, remote, and rare,
   Like a bird in the wide air,
   And, as the bird, it left no trace
   In the heaven of your face.
   In your stupidity I found
   The sweet hush after a sweet sound.
   All about you was the light
   That dims the greying end of night;
   Desire was the unrisen sun,
   Joy the day not yet begun,
   With tree whispering to tree,
   Without wind, quietly.
   Wisdom slept within your hair,
   And Long-Suffering was there,
   And, in the flowing of your dress,
   Undiscerning Tenderness.
   And when you thought, it seemed to me,
   Infinitely, and like a sea,
   About the slight world you had known
   Your vast unconsciousness was thrown. . . .

   O haven without wave or tide!
   Silence, in which all songs have died!
   Holy book, where hearts are still!
   And home at length under the hill!
   O mother quiet, breasts of peace,
   Where love itself would faint and cease!
   O infinite deep I never knew,
   I would come back, come back to you,
   Find you, as a pool unstirred,
   Kneel down by you, and never a word,
   Lay my head, and nothing said,
   In your hands, ungarlanded;
   And a long watch you would keep;
   And I should sleep, and I should sleep!

   Mataiea, January 1914