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 />Nought 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/now-god-be-thanked-who-has-matched-us-with-his-h/
