Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, <br /> And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, <br />With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, <br /> To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, <br />Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, <br /> Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, <br />And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, <br /> And all the little emptiness of love! <br /> <br />Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there, <br /> Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, <br /> Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; <br />Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there <br /> But only agony, and that has ending; <br /> And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.<br /><br />Rupert Brooke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-peace/
