The Wondering Minstrels: Dust -- Rupert Brooke

Guest poem sent in by Vanathi S

(Poem #1244) Dust

 When the white flame in us is gone,
 And we that lost the world's delight
 Stiffen in darkness, left alone
 To crumble in our separate night;

 When your swift hair is quiet in death,
 And through the lips corruption thrust
 Has still'd the labour of my breath -
 When we are dust, when we are dust!

 Not dead, not undesirous yet,
 Still sentient, still unsatisfied,
 We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,
 Around the places where we died,

 And dance as dust before the sun,
 And light of foot and unconfined,
 Hurry from road to road, and run
 About the errands of the wind.

 And every mote, on earth or air,
 Will speed and gleam, down later days,
 And like a secret pilgrim fare
 By eager and invisible ways,

 Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,
 Till, beyond thinking, out of view,
 One mote of all the dust that's I
 Shall meet one atom that was you.

 Then in some garden hush'd from wind,
 Warm in a sunset's afterglow,
 The lovers in the flowers will find
 A sweet and strange unquiet grow

 Upon the peace; and, past desiring,
 So high a beauty in the air,
 And such a light, and such a quiring,
 And such a radiant ecstasy there,

 They'll know not if it's fire, or dew,
 Or out of earth, or in the height,
 Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,
 Or two that pass, in light, to light,

 Out of the garden, higher, higher. . . .
 But in that instant they shall learn
 The shattering ecstasy of our fire,
 And the weak passionless hearts will burn

 And faint in that amazing glow,
 Until the darkness close above;
 And they will know - poor fools, they'll know!
 One moment, what it is to love.

-- Rupert Brooke

The poem's simply beautiful, moving from a dark, quiet
world, from a sense of resignation, to a vibrant,
lively rhythm, powered by hope, and builds towards a
culmination of an ecstasy, and then... there is
nothing. I like the way it lifts the heart and then
disappears, leaving behind a mystical remnant of the
passion. Enjoy!

Vanathi

[Martin adds]

Good to see a Brooke poem in the submission queue - IMO, Georgian poetry is
the most underrated body of verse out there, and I'm always glad to see that
I'm not alone in appreciating it.

Dust -- Rupert Brooke

15 comments: