Is it the hour? We leave this resting-place
   Made fair by one another for a while.
Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;
   The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.
Ah! the long road! and you so far away!
Oh, I'll remember! but...each crawling day
Will pale a little your scarlet lips, each mile
   Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.

...Do you think there's a far border town, somewhere,
   The desert's edge, last of the lands we know,
      Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,
   In which I'll find you waiting; and we'll go
Together, hand in hand again, out there,
      Into the waste we know not, into the night?

Rupert Brooke

Back to Index