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Title: Rupert Brooke
Author: John Presland [
More Titles by Presland]
April 1915
You that are gone into the dark
Of unknowing and unbeing;
You that have heard the song of the lark,
You that have seen the joy of the spring;
You have I seen, you have I known
--The word you have written, your pictured head--
And they say you are laid at Lemnos among the English dead.
Soul that is gone--is gone--
Whether into the dark,
Or into knowledge complete and the blinding light;
Soul that was swift and free,
Passionate, eager, bright,
Armed with a weapon for shams,
And set with wings for flight;
Soul that was questioning, restless, and all at odds with life,
Greedy for it, yet satiate, and sick with the shows of things
--And all laid down at Lemnos, the hunger, the love, the strife,
And the youthful grace of body, and the body's ministerings.
Darkness, darkness, or light!
You have leapt from the circle of sense,
And only your dust remains and the word you said:
"If I should die," ... and we name you among the dead.
Yet have I a hope at heart
That somewhere away, apart,
Knowledge is yours and joy of the act fulfilled
To still your fever of soul as your fever of blood is stilled;
So shall you soar and run
In water and wind and air,
With your old clean joy of the sun,
And your gladness in all things fair,
Untouched by mortality's sadness, simple, perfect, at one.
[The end]
John Presland's poem: Rupert Brooke
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