Best 50 quotes of Rupert Brooke on MyQuotes

A book may be compared to your neighbor: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early.

A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out the years.

All the little emptiness of love!

And in my flower-beds, I think, Smile the carnation and the pink.

And in that Heaven of all their wish, there shall be no more land, say fish

And I shall find some girl perhaps, and a better one than you, With eyes as wise, but kindlier, and lips as soft, but true, and I dare say she will do.

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.

Breathless, we flung us on a windy hill, Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.

But only agony, and that has ending; And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, is wetter water, slimier slime! And there (they trust) there swimmeth one who swam ere rivers were begun, immense of fishy form and mind, squamous omnipotent, and kind.

But the best I've known Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown About the winds of the world, and fades from brains Of living men, and dies.

Canada is a live country - live, but not, like the States, kicking.

Cities, like cats, will reveal themselves at night.

Down the blue night the unending columns press In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow

Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond?

For Cambridge people rarely smile, Being urban, squat, and packed with guile.

If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

If I should die, think only this of me: that there's some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England.

I have a thousand images of you in an hour; all different and all coming back to the same. I think of you once against a sky line: and on the hill that Sunday morning. The light and the shadow and quietness and the rain and the wood. And you. Your arms and lips and hair and shoulders and voice - you.

I have been so great a lover: filled my days So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise, The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, Desire illimitable, and silent content, And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear Our hearts at random down the dark of life.

I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

I know what things are good: friendship and work and conversation. These I shall have.

Incredibly, inordinately, devastatingly, immortally, calamitously, hearteningly, adorably beautiful.

Infinite hungers leap no more I in the chance swaying of your dress; and love has changed to kindliness.

In your arms was still delight, Quiet as a street at night; And thoughts of you, I do remember, Were green leaves in a darkened chamber, Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.

I thought when love for you died, I should die. It's dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on.

It's all a terrible tragedy. And yet, in it's details, it's great fun. And - apart from the tragedy - I've never felt happier or better in my life than in those days in Belgium.

Just now the lilac is in bloom All before my little room.

Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Love sells the proud heart's citadel to fate.

Mud unto mud!--Death eddies near-- Not here the appointed End, not here! But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, Is wetter water, slimier slime!

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping.

Oh! death will find me, long before I tire Of watching for you; and swing me suddenly Into the shade and loneliness and mire Of the last land!

Oh! death will find me long before I tire of watching you.

One may not doubt that, somehow Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And sure, the reverent eye must see A purpose in Liquidity.

Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And, sure, the reverent eye must see A Purpose in Liquidity.

Spend in pure converse our eternal day; Think each in each, immediately wise; Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say What this tumultuous body now denies; And feel, who have laid our groping hands away; And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.

Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?

Store up reservoirs of calm and content and draw on them at later moments when the source isn't there, but the need is very great.

The cool kindliness of sheets, that soon smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss of blankets.

There's little comfort in the wise

These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That men call age; and those who would have been, Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

They say that the Dead die not, but remain Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth. I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these, In wise majestic melancholy train, And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas, And men, coming and going on the earth.

War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, Secretly armed against all death's endeavour; Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

.. . . would I were In Grantchester, in Grantchester!

Yet, behind the night, Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar, Some white tremendous daybreak.

Youth is stranger than fiction.

Ah God! to see the branches stir Across the moon at Grantchester! To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten Unforgettable, unforgotten River-smell, and hear the breeze Sobbing in the little trees. Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand Still guardians of that holy land? The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream, The yet unacademic stream Is dawn a secret shy and cold Anadyomene, silver-gold? And sunset still a golden sea From Haslingfield to Madingley? And after, ere the night is born, Do hares come out about the corn? Oh, is the water sweet and cool, Gentle and brown, above the pool? And laughs the immortal river still Under the mill, under the mill? Say, is there Beauty yet to find? And Certainty? and Quiet kind? Deep meadows yet, for to forget The lies, and truths, and pain?… oh! yet Stands the Church clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?

Spend the glittering moonlight there Pursuing down the soundless deep Limbs that gleam and shadowy hair, Or floating lazy, half-asleep. Dive and double and follow after, Snare in flowers, and kiss, and call, With lips that fade, and human laughter And faces individual, Well this side of Paradise! . . . There's little comfort in the wise.

Stands the clock at ten to three? And is there honey still for tea?

The Call Out of the nothingness of sleep, The slow dreams of Eternity, There was a thunder on the deep: I came, because you called to me. I broke the Night's primeval bars, I dared the old abysmal curse, And flashed through ranks of frightened stars Suddenly on the universe! The eternal silences were broken; Hell became Heaven as I passed. -- What shall I give you as a token, A sign that we have met, at last? I'll break and forge the stars anew, Shatter the heavens with a song; Immortal in my love for you, Because I love you, very strong. Your mouth shall mock the old and wise, Your laugh shall fill the world with flame, I'll write upon the shrinking skies The scarlet splendour of your name, Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder Dies in her ultimate mad fire, And darkness falls, with scornful thunder, On dreams of men and men's desire. Then only in the empty spaces, Death, walking very silently, Shall fear the glory of our faces Through all the dark infinity. So, clothed about with perfect love, The eternal end shall find us one, Alone above the Night, above The dust of the dead gods, alone.