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Seaside

By Rupert Brooke

Topics: classic

Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band,     The crowd's good laughter, the loved eyes of men,     I am drawn nightward; I must turn again     Where, down beyond the low untrodden strand,     There curves and glimmers outward to the unknown     The old unquiet ocean. All the shade     Is rife with magic and movement. I stray alone     Here on the edge of silence, half afraid,     Waiting a sign. In the deep heart of me     The sullen waters swell towards the moon,     And all my tides set seaward.      From inland     Leaps a gay fragment of some mocking tune,     That tinkles and laughs and fades along the sand,     And dies between the seawall and the sea.

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"Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band,..."

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Author:Rupert Brooke

"Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band,..." 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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