1914, and Other Poems

Copyright 1915 by Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd. All rights reserved PRINTED AT THE COMPLETE PRESS WEST NORWOOD LONDON
By the same Author POEMS
( Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd. ) First edition, 1911 Reprinted 1913 May 1915 (twice)
RUPERT BROOKE
Born at Rugby, August 3, 1887 Fellow of King's, 1913 Sub-Lieutenant, R.N.V.R., September 1914 Antwerp Expedition, October 1914 Sailed with British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, February 28, 1915 Died in the Ægean, April 23, 1915
These poems have appeared in New Numbers , the old Poetry Review , Poetry and Drama , Rhythm , The Blue Review , The New Statesman , The Pall Mall Magazine , and Basileon . Acknowledgements are due to the Editors who have allowed them to be reprinted.
The Author had thought of publishing a volume of poems this spring, but he did not prepare the present book for publication.

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 honour 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.