Rupert Brooke Quotes & Sayings

Yet, behind the night, Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar, Some white tremendous daybreak. — Rupert Brooke

The Hill
Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old ... " "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
- "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"
"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!" ... Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
- And then you suddenly cried, and turned away. — Rupert Brooke

Canada is a live country - live, but not, like the States, kicking. — Rupert Brooke

It's all a terrible tragedy. And yet, in it's details, it's great fun. And - apart from the tragedy - I've never felt happier or better in my life than in those days in Belgium. — Rupert Brooke

I know what things are good: friendship and work and conversation. These I shall have. — Rupert Brooke

That night, how could I sleep?
I lay and watched the lonely gloom;
And watched the moonlight creep
From wall to basin, round the room.
All night I could not sleep. — Rupert Brooke

All the little emptiness of love! — Rupert Brooke

Proud, then, clear-eyed and laughing, go to greet Death as a friend! — Rupert Brooke

One may not doubt that, somehow Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And sure, the reverent eye must see A purpose in Liquidity. — Rupert Brooke

And in that Heaven of all their wish, there shall be no more land, say fish — Rupert Brooke

Spend the glittering moonlight there
Pursuing down the soundless deep
Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair,
Or floating lazy, half-asleep.
Dive and double and follow after,
Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call,
With lips that fade, and human laughter
And faces individual,
Well this side of Paradise! ...
There's little comfort in the wise. — Rupert Brooke

But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known, And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser than their own. — Rupert Brooke

We always love those who admire us; we do not always love those whom we admire. — Rupert Brooke

But the best I've known
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies. — Rupert Brooke

The worst of slaves is he whom passion rules. — Rupert Brooke

All the day I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love ... — Rupert Brooke

I shall desire and I shall find
The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the mellow wind
That soothes the darkening shires.
And laughter, and inn-fires. — Rupert Brooke

Breathless, we flung us on a windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass. — Rupert Brooke

I have a thousand images of you in an hour; all different and all coming back to the same. I think of you once against a sky line: and on the hill that Sunday morning. The light and the shadow and quietness and the rain and the wood. And you. Your arms and lips and hair and shoulders and voice - you. — Rupert Brooke

There are three good things in this world. One is to read poetry, another is to write poetry, and the best of all is to live poetry. — Rupert Brooke

Spend in pure converse our eternal day;
Think each in each, immediately wise;
Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say
What this tumultuous body now denies;
And feel, who have laid our groping hands away;
And see, no longer blinded by our eyes. — Rupert Brooke

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. — Rupert Brooke

Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Love sells the proud heart's citadel to fate. — Rupert Brooke

A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out all the years. — Rupert Brooke

For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile. — Rupert Brooke

Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea? — Rupert Brooke

The cool kindliness of sheets, that soon smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss of blankets. — Rupert Brooke

My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days — Rupert Brooke

I thought when love for you died, I should die.
It's dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on. — Rupert Brooke

Failure
Because God put His adamantine fate
Between my sullen heart and its desire,
I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,
Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire.
Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,
But Love was as a flame about my feet;
Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat
Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry
All the great courts were quiet in the sun,
And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown
Over the glassy pavement, and begun
To creep within the dusty council-halls.
An idle wind blew round an empty throne
And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls. — Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. — Rupert Brooke

Down the blue night the unending columns press
In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow — Rupert Brooke

Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? — Rupert Brooke

Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night. — Rupert Brooke

And I shall find some girl perhaps, and a better one than you, With eyes as wise, but kindlier, and lips as soft, but true, and I dare say she will do. — Rupert Brooke

Oh! death will find me long before I tire of watching you. — Rupert Brooke

Just now the lilac is in bloom
All before my little room. — Rupert Brooke

In your arms was still delight,
Quiet as a street at night;
And thoughts of you, I do remember,
Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,
Were dark clouds in a moonless sky. — Rupert Brooke

They say that the Dead die not, but remain Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, In wise majestic melancholy train, And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, And men, coming and going on the earth. — Rupert Brooke

War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,
Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;
Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;
And if these poor limbs die, safest of all. — Rupert Brooke

But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. — Rupert Brooke

Store up reservoirs of calm and content and draw on them at later moments when the source isn't there, but the need is very great. — Rupert Brooke

A kiss makes the heart young again a wipes out all the tears. — Rupert Brooke

There's little comfort in the wise — Rupert Brooke

A book may be compared to your neighbour: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early — Rupert Brooke

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed.
(I'm flogging a dead horse w/ this one but this is the 1st time I've even seen this quotes feature! I just wanted to post something.) — Rupert Brooke

The War Sonnets: V. The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. — Rupert Brooke

These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality. — Rupert Brooke

And in my flower-beds,
I think,
Smile the carnation
and the pink. — Rupert Brooke

I have been so great a lover: filled my days So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise, The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, Desire illimitable, and silent content, And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear Our hearts at random down the dark of life. — Rupert Brooke

Love is a flame; - we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: - and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: - we have taught the world to die. — Rupert Brooke