1914 I. Peace
1914 I. Peace
Original Text
Rupert Brooke, "1914" Five Sonnets (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1915). PR 6003 R4N5 1915b Robarts Library. See also Rupert Brooke, 1914 & Other Poems (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1915): 11. PR 6003 R4N5 Robarts Library.
1Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour
2 And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
3With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
4 To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
5Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
6 Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
7And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
8 And all the little emptiness of love!
9Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
10 Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
11 Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
12Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
13 But only agony, and that has ending;
14 And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
Publication Start Year
1915
Publication Notes
New Numbers (1915)
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1999.
Rhyme
Form