Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void, <br />lost in the haunted wood, <br />I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude <br />Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam <br />Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream, <br />Unrecaptured. <br />For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance <br />One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance <br />Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it, <br />End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit <br />The flame, burning apart. <br />Face of my dreams vainly in vision white <br />Gleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnight <br />Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above <br />Grated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the sacred grove <br />Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length. <br /> <br />I knew <br />Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you <br />Somewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth, <br />White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth, <br />God, immortal and dead! <br />Therefore I go; never to rest, or win <br />Peace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the shrine therein.<br /><br />Rupert Brooke<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/choriambics-ii/
