Louis Untermeyer, ed. (1885–1977). Modern British Poetry. 1920.
Rupert Brooke18871915Dust
W
And we that lost the world’s delight
Stiffen in darkness, left alone
To crumble in our separate night;
And through the lips corruption thrust
Has stilled the labour of my breath—
When we are dust, when we are dust!—
Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
We’ll ride the air, and shine and flit,
Around the places where we died,
And light of foot, and unconfined,
Hurry from road to road, and run
About the errands of the wind.
Will speed and gleam, down later days,
And like a secret pilgrim fare
By eager and invisible ways,
Till, beyond thinking, out of view,
One mote of all the dust that’s I
Shall meet one atom that was you.
Warm in a sunset’s afterglow,
The lovers in the flowers will find
A sweet and strange unquiet grow
So high a beauty in the air,
And such a light, and such a quiring,
And such a radiant ecstasy there,
Or out of earth, or in the height,
Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,
Or two that pass, in light, to light,
But in that instant they shall learn
The shattering fury of our fire,
And the weak passionless hearts will burn
Until the darkness close above;
And they will know—poor fools, they’ll know!—
One moment, what it is to love.