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Mutability

By Rupert Brooke

Topics: classic

They say there's a high windless world and strange,     Out of the wash of days and temporal tide,     Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide,     'Aeterna corpora', subject to no change.     There the sure suns of these pale shadows move;     There stand the immortal ensigns of our war;     Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star,     And perishing hearts, imperishable Love. . . .     Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;     Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;     Love has no habitation but the heart.     Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,     Cling, and are borne into the night apart.     The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover.

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Author:Rupert Brooke

"They say there's a high windless world and strange..." by Rupert Brooke

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Rupert Brooke

About Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) was an English war poet whose sonnets—including "The Soldier" ("If I should die, think only this of me")—idealized the sacrifice of war. He died of sepsis en route to Gallipoli and became a symbol of the lost generation of WWI.

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