Project Gutenberg's The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, by Rupert Brooke

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Title: The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke

Author: Rupert Brooke

Posting Date: July 10, 2008 [EBook #262]
Release Date: May, 1995

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF RUPERT BROOKE ***

Produced by A. Light, Linda Bowser, and Rick Niles

THE COLLECTED POEMS OF RUPERT BROOKE

by Rupert Brooke

[British Poet -- 1887-1915.]

1915 edition

[A new Appendix is included in this etext, consisting of poems
ABOUT or TO Rupert Brooke.]

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke
with an introduction by George Edward Woodberry
and a biographical note by Margaret Lavington

Born at Rugby, August 3, 1887
Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, 1913
Sub-Lieutenant, R.N.V.R., September, 1914
Antwerp Expedition, October, 1914
Sailed with British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, February 28, 1915
Died in the Aegean, April 23, 1915

Introduction

I

Rupert Brooke was both fair to see and winning in his ways. There was
at the first contact both bloom and charm; and most of all there was life.
To use the word his friends describe him by, he was "vivid".
This vitality, though manifold in expression, is felt primarily
in his sensations -- surprise mingled with delight --

"One after one, like tasting a sweet food."

This is life's "first fine rapture". It makes him patient to
name over those myriad things (each of which seems like a fresh discovery)
curious but potent, and above all common, that he "loved", --
he the "Great Lover". Lover of what, then? Why, of

"White plates and cups clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines," --

and the like, through thirty lines of exquisite words; and he is captivated
by the multiple brevity of these vignettes of sense, keen, momentary,
ecstatic with the morning dip of youth in the wonderful stream.
The poem is a catalogue of vital sensations and "dear names" as well.
"All these have been my loves."

The spring of these emotions is the natural body, but it sends pulsations
far into the spiri