Yet, as I wait on marvels, such a bird
As maybe Sigurd heard-

A thrush alighting with a little run
Out-tops the daisies as it passes

And peeps bright-eyed above the grasses.

DAWN

A thrush is tapping a stone
With a snail-shell in its beak;
A small bird hangs from a cherry
Until the stem shall break.
No waking song has begun,
And yet birds chatter and hurry
And throng in the elm's gloom
Because an owl goes home.

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 graying 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!

NINETEEN-FOURTEEN

I-PEACE

Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping!
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary;
Leave the sick hearts that honor could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh, we who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,

Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there, But only agony, and that has ending;

And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

II-SAFETY

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,

Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, "Who is so safe as we?"
We have found safety with all things undying-

The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying, And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing. We have gained a peace unshaken by pain forever. War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,

Secretly armed against all Death's endeavor; Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

III THE DEAD

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be

Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene

That men call age; and those who would have been Their sons they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.

Honor has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;

And Nobleness walks in our ways again;

And we have come into our heritage.

IV THE DEAD

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The
years
had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colors of the earth.

These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved, gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;

Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended. There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,

Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance,
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

V-SOLDIER

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Witter Bynner

GRASS-TOPS

What bird are you in the grass-tops?
Your poise is enough of an answer,
With your wing-tips like up-curving fingers
Of the slow-moving hands of a dancer-

And what is so nameless as beauty,
Which poets, who give it a name,
Are only unnaming forever?—

Content, though it go, that it came.

DREAM

I had returned from dreaming-
When there came the look of you,

And I could not tell after that;
And the sound of you

And I could not tell;

And at last the touch of you

And I could tell then less than ever;

Though I silvered and fell

As at the very mountain-brim

Of dream.

For how could the motion of a shadow in a field

Be a person?

Or the flash of an oriole-wing

Be a smile?

Or the turn of a leaf on a stream

Be a hand?

Or a bright breath of sun

Be lips?