Poem by Rupert Chawner Brooke

The Busy Heart

 Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted,
   I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
 (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
   I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
 Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
   And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;
 And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;
   And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
 And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
   And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy,
 That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things,
   Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
 One after one, like tasting a sweet food.
 I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

1. The Great Lover
2. Fragment on Painters
3. The Jolly Company
4. Song (The way of love was thus)
5. It's Not Going to Happen Again

Print

1318 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version