,
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?

Fafaia

Stars that seem so close and bright,
Watched by lovers through the night,
Swim in emptiness, men say,
Many a mile and year away.

And yonder star that burns so white,
May have died to dust and night
Ten, maybe, or fifteen year,
Before it shines upon my dear.

Oh! often among men below,
Heart cries out to heart, I know,
And one is dust a many years,
Child, before the other hears.

Heart from heart is all as far,
Fafaia, as start from star.

Saanapu, November 1913.

Appendix

NOTE

The Appendix contains: (1) the only two coherent fragments found in the
notebook which Brooke used in the last month of his life; a little song,
written, I think on his travels; and a poem, dating probably from 1912,
which for some reason he left unrevised; (2) a few "lighter" poems which
I dare say he would have printed on their merits if he had published a
volume in which they would not have been out of key. Two of these, the
"Letter to a Live Poet" and "The Little Dog's Day," were written for
Westminster Gazette competitions, in which they won prizes. Edward Marsh

Fragment

I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night
Under a cloudy moonless sky; and peeped
In at the windows, watched my friends at table,
In the windows, watched my friends at table,
Or playing cards, or standing in the doorway,
Or coming out into the darkness. Still
No one could see me.

I would have thought of them
--Heedless, within a week of battle--in pity,
Pride in their strength and in the weight and firmness
And link'd beauty of bodies, and pity that
This gay machine of splendour 'ld soon be broken,
Thought little of, pashed, scattered, . . .

Only, always,
I could but see them--against the lamplight--pass
Like coloured shadows, thinner than filmy glass,
Slight bubbles, fainter than the wave's faint light,
That broke to phosphorus out in the night,
Perishing things and strange ghosts--soon to die
To other ghosts-