Poem by Rupert Chawner Brooke

Finding

From the candles and dumb shadows,
   And the house where love had died,
I stole to the vast moonlight
   And the whispering life outside.
But I found no lips of comfort,
   No home in the moon's light
(I, little and lone and frightened
   In the unfriendly night),
And no meaning in the voices....
   Far over the lands and through
The dark, beyond the ocean,
   I willed to think of you!
For I knew, had you been with me
   I'd have known the words of night,
Found peace of heart, gone gladly
   In comfort of that light.

Oh! the wind with soft beguiling
   Would have stolen my thought away;
And the night, subtly smiling,
   Came by the silver way;
And the moon came down and danced to me,
   And her robe was white and flying;
And trees bent their heads to me
   Mysteriously crying;
And dead voices wept around me;
   And dead soft fingers thrilled;
And the little gods whispered....
                                                   But ever
   Desperately I willed;
Till all grew soft and far
   And silent...
                         And suddenly
I found you white and radiant,
   Sleeping quietly,
Far out through the tides of darkness.
   And I there in that great light
Was alone no more, nor fearful;
   For there, in the homely night,
Was no thought else that mattered,
   And nothing else was true,
But the white fire of moonlight,
   And a white dream of you.

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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