Poem by Rupert Chawner Brooke

Dead Men's Love

   There was a damned successful Poet;
    There was a Woman like the Sun.
   And they were dead.  They did not know it.
    They did not know their time was done.
       They did not know his hymns
       Were silence; and her limbs,
       That had served Love so well,
       Dust, and a filthy smell.

   And so one day, as ever of old,
    Hands out, they hurried, knee to knee;
   On fire to cling and kiss and hold
    And, in the other's eyes, to see
       Each his own tiny face,
       And in that long embrace
       Feel lip and breast grow warm
       To breast and lip and arm.

   So knee to knee they sped again,
    And laugh to laugh they ran, I'm told,
   Across the streets of Hell...
                                     And then
    They suddenly felt the wind blow cold,
       And knew, so closely pressed,
       Chill air on lip and breast,
       And, with a sick surprise,
       The emptiness of eyes.

1. The Jolly Company
2. The Great Lover
3. The Funeral of Youth: Threnody
4. Seaside
5. On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess

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