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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 still 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.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
my night might be remembered for a star
that outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
high secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
the inenarrable godhead of delight?
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,
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
and the high cause of love's magnificence,
and to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
golden forever, eagles, crying flames,
and set them as a banner, that men may know,
to dare the generations, burn, and blow
out on the winds of time, shining and streaming...
these I have loved:
....and radiant raindrops couching in cool
flowers;
and, flowers themselves, that sway through
sunny hours,
dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
this one last gift I give; that after men
shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
praise you, "All these were lovely"; say,
"He loved"
"The Great Lover" Rupert Brooke |
