Rupert Brooke (18871915). Collected Poems. 1916. |
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V. The South Seas |
11. Hauntings |
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IN the grey tumult of these after years | |
Oft silence falls; the incessant wranglers part; | |
And less-than-echoes of remembered tears | |
Hush all the loud confusion of the heart; | |
And a shade, through the tossd ranks of mirth and crying | 5 |
Hungers, and pains, and each dull passionate mood, | |
Quite lost, and all but all forgot, undying, | |
Comes back the ecstasy of your quietude. | |
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So a poor ghost, beside his misty streams, | |
Is haunted by strange doubts, evasive dreams, | 10 |
Hints of a pre-Lethean life, of men, | |
Stars, rocks, and flesh, things unintelligible, | |
And light on waving grass, he knows not when, | |
And feet that ran, but where, he cannot tell.
THE PACIFIC, 1914. | |
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