| Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Collected Poems. 1916. |
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| I. 1905–1908 |
| 1. Second Best |
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| HERE in the dark, O heart; | |
| Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night, | |
| And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover; | |
| Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart | |
| From the dead best, the dear and old delight; | 5 |
| Throw down your dreams of immortality, | |
| O faithful, O foolish lover! | |
| Here’s peace for you, and surety; here the one | |
| Wisdom—the truth!—“All day the good glad sun | |
| Showers love and labour on you, wine and song; | 10 |
| The greenwood laughs, the wind blows, all day long | |
| Till night.” And night ends all things. | |
| Then shall be | |
| No lamp relumed in heaven, no voices crying, | |
| Or changing lights, or dreams and forms that hover! | 15 |
| (And, heart, for all your sighing, | |
| That gladness and those tears are over, over.…) | |
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| And has the truth brought no new hope at all, | |
| Heart, that you’re weeping yet for Paradise? | |
| Do they still whisper, the old weary cries? | 20 |
| “ ’Mid youth and song, feasting and carnival, | |
| Through laughter, through the roses, as of old | |
| Comes Death, on shadowy and relentless feet, | |
| Death, unappeasable by prayer or gold; | |
| Death is the end, the end!” | 25 |
| Proud, then, clear-eyed and laughing, go to greet | |
| Death as a friend! | |
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| Exile of immortality, strongly wise, | |
| Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes | |
| To what may lie beyond it. Sets your star, | 30 |
| O heart, for ever! Yet, behind the night, | |
| Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar, | |
| Some white tremendous daybreak. And the light, | |
| Returning, shall give back the golden hours, | |
| Ocean a windless level, Earth a lawn | 35 |
| Spacious and full of sunlit dancing-places, | |
| And laughter, and music, and, among the flowers, | |
| The gay child-hearts of men, and the child-faces | |
| O heart, in the great dawn! | |
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