Get Your Premium Membership

Famous Brooke Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Brooke poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous brooke poems. These examples illustrate what a famous brooke poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

See also:

by Brooke, Rupert
...Sir, since the last Elizabethan died,
Or, rather, that more Paradisal muse,
Blind with much light, passed to the light more glorious
Or deeper blindness, no man's hand, as thine,
Has, on the world's most noblest chord of song,
Struck certain magic strains. Ears satiate
With the clamorous, timorous whisperings of to-day,
Thrilled to perceive once more t...Read more of this...



by Brooke, Rupert
...(From a sonnet-sequence)


Somewhile before the dawn I rose, and stept 
Softly along the dim way to your room, 
And found you sleeping in the quiet gloom, 
And holiness about you as you slept. 
I knelt there; till your waking fingers crept
About my head, and held it. I had rest 
Unhoped this side of Heaven, beneath your breast. 
I knelt a long ...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...Before thy shrine I kneel, an unknown worshipper,
Chanting strange hymns to thee and sorrowful litanies,
Incense of dirges, prayers that are as holy myrrh.

Ah, goddess, on thy throne of tears and faint low sighs,
Weary at last to theeward come the feet that err,
And empty hearts grown tired of the world's vanities.

How fair this cool deep silence...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...they promised to dight for him,
Gay chapelets of flowers and gyrlonds trim.

And many a Nymph both of the wood and brooke,
Soone as his oaten pipe began to shrill:
Both christall wells and shadie groues forsooke,
To heare the charmes of his enchanting skill.
And brought him presents, flowers if it were prime,
Or mellow fruit if it were haruest time.

But he for none of them did care a whit,
Yet wood Gods for them oft[en] sighed sore:
Ne for their gifts vnworthie ...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...they promised to dight for him,
Gay chapelets of flowers and gyrlonds trim.

And many a Nymph both of the wood and brooke,
Soone as his oaten pipe began to shrill:
Both christall wells and shadie groues forsooke,
To heare the charmes of his enchanting skill.
And brought him presents, flowers if it were prime,
Or mellow fruit if it were haruest time.

But he for none of them did care a whit,
Yet wood Gods for them oft[en] sighed sore:
Ne for their gifts vnworthie ...Read more of this...



by Sidney, Sir Philip
...t your large precepts misse!
When I might reade those Letters faire of blisse
Which in her face teach vertue, I could brooke
Somwhat thy leaden counsels, which I tooke
As of a friend that meant not much amisse.
But now that I, alas, doe want her sight,
What, dost thou thinke that I can euer take
In thy cold stuffe a flegmatike delight?
No, Patience; if thou wilt my good, then make
Her come and heare with patience my desire,
And then with patience bid me beare my...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...My restless blood now lies a-quiver,
Knowing that always, exquisitely,
This April twilight on the river
Stirs anguish in the heart of me.

For the fast world in that rare glimmer
Puts on the witchery of a dream,
The straight grey buildings, richly dimmer,
The fiery windows, and the stream

With willows leaning quietly over,
The still ecstatic fading sk...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...When you were there, and you, and you, 
Happiness crowned the night; I too, 
Laughing and looking, one of all, 
I watched the quivering lamplight fall 
On plate and flowers and pouring tea
And cup and cloth; and they and we 
Flung all the dancing moments by 
With jest and glitter. Lip and eye 
Flashed on the glory, shone and cried, 
Improvident, unmemo...Read more of this...

by Spenser, Edmund
...ook 
In Tempe, lying on the flowry gras, 
Twixt sleepe and wake, after she weary was, 
With bathing in the Acidalian brooke. 310 
Now it is night, ye damsels may be gon, 
And leave my love alone, 
And leave likewise your former lay to sing: 
The woods no more shall answere, nor your echo ring. 

Now welcome, night! thou night so long expected, 315 
That long daies labour doest at last defray, 
And all my cares, which cruell Love collected, 
Hast sumd in on...Read more of this...

by Marvell, Andrew
...an,
Whom as Priest, Poet, and Musician,
I for some branch of Melchizedeck took,
(Though he derives himself from my Lord Brooke)
I sought his Lodging; which is at the Sign
Of the sad Pelican; Subject divine
For Poetry: There three Stair Cases high,
Which signifies his triple property,
I found at last a Chamber, as 'twas said,
But seem'd a Coffin set on the Stairs head.
Not higher then Seav'n, nor larger then three feet;
Only there was nor Seeling, nor a Sheet,
Save that th...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...The day that YOUTH had died,
There came to his grave-side,
In decent mourning, from the country's ends,
Those scatter'd friends
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted,
In feast and wine and many-crown'd carouse,
The days and nights and dawnings of the time
When YOUTH kept open house,
Nor left untas...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...When I see you, who were so wise and cool,
Gazing with silly sickness on that fool
You've given your love to, your adoring hands
Touch his so intimately that each understands,
I know, most hidden things; and when I know
Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow
Of his red lips, and that the empty grace
Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,
Has b...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...Today I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.

S...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights 
Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights. 

Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon! 
Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures, 
Settled at Balham by the end of June. 
Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures, 
And in Antofagastas. Still he went 
Cityward daily; st...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...In a cool curving world he lies
And ripples with dark ecstasies.
The kind luxurious lapse and steal
Shapes all his universe to feel
And know and be; the clinging stream
Closes his memory, glooms his dream,
Who lips the roots o' the shore, and glides
Superb on unreturning tides.
Those silent waters weave for him
A fluctuant mutable world and dim,
Wh...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...The Day that Youth had died,
There came to his grave-side, 
In decent mourning, from the country’s ends, 
Those scatter’d friends 
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted, 
In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse, 
The days and nights and dawnings of the time 
When Youth kept open house, 
Nor lef...Read more of this...

by Betjeman, John
...s to see?
I do not know, though much I care,
xxxxxxxx.....would I were
(Forgive me, shade of Rupert Brooke)
An object fit to claim her look.
Oh! would I were her racket press'd
With hard excitement to her breast
And swished into the sunlit air
Arm-high above her tousled hair,
And banged against the bounding ball
"Oh! Plung!" my tauten'd strings would call,
"Oh! Plung! my darling, break my strings
For you I will do brilliant things."
And when the ma...Read more of this...

by Kilmer, Joyce
...
Turk,
And David, the Singing King of the Jews,
who was born with a sword in his hand.
It was yesterday that Rupert Brooke went out to the Wars and died,
And Sir Philip Sidney's lyric voice was as sweet as his arm was 
strong;
And Sir Walter Raleigh met the axe as a lover meets his bride,
Because he carried in his soul the courage of his song.
"And there is no consolation so quickening to the 
heart
As the warmth and whiteness that come from the lines of noble poetry....Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
...(Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set, they sing this beneath the trees.)

What light of unremembered skies
Hast thou relumed within our eyes,
Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .
A certain odour on the wind,
Thy hidden face beyond the west,
These things have called us; on a quest
Older than any road we trod,
More endless...Read more of this...

by Brooke, Rupert
..."Oh love is fair, and love is rare;" my dear one she said,
"But love goes lightly over." I bowed her foolish head,
And kissed her hair and laughed at her. Such a child was she;
So new to love, so true to love, and she spoke so bitterly.

But there's wisdom in women, of more than they have known,
And thoughts go blowing through them, are wiser t...Read more of this...

Dont forget to view our wonderful member Brooke poems.


Book: Shattered Sighs