| Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Collected Poems. 1916. |
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| I. 1905–1908 |
| 2. Day That I Have Loved |
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| TENDERLY, day that I have loved, I close your eyes, | |
| And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands. | |
| The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies. | |
| I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands, | |
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| Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea’s making | 5 |
| Mist-garlanded, with all grey weeds of the water crowned. | |
| There you’ll be laid, past fear of sleep or hope of waking; | |
| And over the unmoving sea, without a sound, | |
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| Faint hands will row you outward, out beyond our sight, | |
| Us with stretched arms and empty eyes on the fargleaming | 10 |
| And marble sand.… Beyond the shifting cold twilight, | |
| Further than laughter goes, or tears, further than dreaming, | |
| There’ll be no port, no dawn-lit islands! But the drear | |
| Waste darkening, and, at length, flame ultimate on the deep. | |
| Oh, the last fire—and you, unkissed, unfriended there! | 15 |
| Oh, the lone way’s red ending, and we not there to weep! | |
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| (We found you pale and quiet, and strangely crowned with flowers, | |
| Lovely and secret as a child. You came with us, | |
| Come happily, hand in hand with the young dancing hours, | |
| High on the downs at dawn!) Void now and tenebrous, | 20 |
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| The grey sands curve before me.… From the inland meadows, | |
| Fragrant of June and clover, floats the dark, and fills | |
| The hollow sea’s dead face with little creeping shadows, | |
| And the white silence brims the hollow of the hills. | |
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| Close in the nest is folded every weary wing, | 25 |
| Hushed all the joyful voices; and we, who held you dear, | |
| Eastward we turn and homeward, alone, remembering… | |
| Day that I loved, day that I loved, the Night is here! | |
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