Not otherwise was Eden once—he thought—
And by God's blessing it may be anew:
And so put forth the power God had lent
And took away all labour, and he drew
Heaven to earth, till earth and heaven were blent.
Time ceased to be; and yet the sun and shade
Shifted to make new beauty with the hours,
And the ripe earth, unlaboured, gave her yields,
No pain there was, no age, and all the flowers
Unwitheringly lovely filled the fields.
And all day long the birds in ecstasy
Sang without shadow of hawk or thought of death,
And the saint happily went about the ways
Filling each home with plenty—his very breath
Was like a little thrilling note of praise.
When all was done he stepped back, childish-wise,
To see and love his handiwork, and then
Came a sharp pain, and pierced him through and through;
He had wrought lovingly for the days of men,
But the heart of men his love could not renew:
The weary heart, the ever-questioning,
The loving, lacking, lonely, incomplete
For ever longing to be merged in one
With something other than itself; to beat
To another's pulse; to be for ever done
With its sad weight of personality.
Then God leaned down to his poor saint, and said:
"Dear soul, would you make heaven upon the earth:
Nor know indeed My purpose in all birth,
Nor that My blessing is upon the dead?"
RUPERT BROOKE
April 1915
You that are gone into the dark
Of unknowing and unbeing;
You that have heard the song of the lark,
You that have seen the joy of the spring;
You have I seen, you have I known
—The word you have written, your pictured head—
And they say you are laid at Lemnos among the English dead.