Poem by Rupert Chawner Brooke

Mutability

 They say there's a high windless world and strange,
   Out of the wash of days and temporal tide,
   Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide,
 Æterna corpora, subject to no change.
 There the sure suns of these pale shadows move;
   There stand the immortal ensigns of our war;
   Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star,
 And perishing hearts, imperishable Love....

 Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;
   Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;
   Love has no habitation but the heart.
 Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,
   Cling, and are borne into the night apart.
   The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover.

1. He Wonders Whether to Praise or to Blame Her
2. Thoughts on the Shape of the Human Body
3. The Song of the Beasts
4. Finding
5. I Said I Splendidly Loved You; It's Not True

Edmund Spenser Mutability ("When I bethink me on that speech whilere")

Print

1942 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version