The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke

The Chilterns

   Your hands, my dear, adorable,
    Your lips of tenderness
   — Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,
    Three years, or a bit less.
    It wasn't a success.

   Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
    Quit of my youth and you,
   The Roman road to Wendover
    By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
    As a free man may do.

   For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
    The tears that follow fast;
   And the dirtiest things we do must lie
    Forgotten at the last;
    Even Love goes past.

   What's left behind I shall not find,
    The splendour and the pain;
   The splash of sun, the shouting wind,
    And the brave sting of rain,
    I may not meet again.

   But the years, that take the best away,
    Give something in the end;
   And a better friend than love have they,
    For none to mar or mend,
    That have themselves to friend.

   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.

   White mist about the black hedgerows,
    The slumbering Midland plain,
   The silence where the clover grows,
    And the dead leaves in the lane,
    Certainly, these remain.

   And I shall find some girl perhaps,
    And a better one than you,
   With eyes as wise, but kindlier,
    And lips as soft, but true.
    And I daresay she will do.