Poem by Rupert Chawner Brooke

Seaside

   Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band,
    The crowd's good laughter, the loved eyes of men,
    I am drawn nightward; I must turn again
   Where, down beyond the low untrodden strand,
   There curves and glimmers outward to the unknown
    The old unquiet ocean.  All the shade
   Is rife with magic and movement.  I stray alone
    Here on the edge of silence, half afraid,

   Waiting a sign.  In the deep heart of me
   The sullen waters swell towards the moon,
   And all my tides set seaward.
                                  From inland
   Leaps a gay fragment of some mocking tune,
   That tinkles and laughs and fades along the sand,
   And dies between the seawall and the sea.

1. The Jolly Company
2. The Great Lover
3. The Funeral of Youth: Threnody
4. On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess
5. The Dance

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