Your hands, my dear, adorable, <br />Your lips of tenderness <br />—Oh, I’ve loved you faithfully and well, <br />Three years, or a bit less. <br />It wasn’t a success. <br /> <br />Thank God, that’s done! and I’ll take the road, <br />Quit of my youth and you, <br />The Roman road to Wendover <br />By Tring and Lilley Hoo, <br />As a free man may do. <br /> <br />For youth goes over, the joys that fly, <br />The tears that follow fast; <br />And the dirtiest things we do must lie <br />Forgotten at the last; <br />Even Love goes past. <br /> <br />What’s left behind I shall not find, <br />The splendour and the pain; <br />The splash of sun, the shouting wind, <br />And the brave sting of rain, <br />I may not meet again. <br /> <br />But the years, that take the best away, <br />Give something in the end; <br />And a better friend than love have they, <br />For none to mar or mend, <br />That have themselves to friend. <br /> <br />I shall desire and I shall find <br />The best of my desires; <br />The autumn road, the mellow wind <br />That soothes the darkening shires. <br />And laughter, and inn-fires. <br /> <br />White mist about the black hedgerows, <br />The slumbering Midland plain, <br />The silence where the clover grows, <br />And the dead leaves in the lane, <br />Certainly, these remain. <br /> <br />And I shall find some girl perhaps, <br />And a better one than you, <br />With eyes as wise, but kindlier, <br />And lips as soft, but true. <br />And I daresay she will do.<br /><br />Rupert Brooke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-chilterns/
