Poem by Rupert Chawner Brooke

A Memory

     From a sonnet-sequence

 Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept
   Softly along the dim way to your room,
   And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom,
 And holiness about you as you slept.
 I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept
   About my head, and held it. I had rest
   Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast.
 I knelt a long time, still; nor even wept.

 It was great wrong you did me; and for gain
 Of that poor moment's kindliness, and ease,
 And sleepy mother-comfort!
                            Child, you know
 How easily love leaps out to dreams like these,
 Who has seen them true. And love that's wakened so
 Takes all too long to lay asleep again.

1. The Great Lover
2. The Jolly Company
3. The Dance
4. The One Before the Last
5. Seaside

Ina Coolbrith A Memory ("THROUGH rifts of cloud the moon's soft silver slips")

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