Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke — The Chilterns

The Chilterns Your hands, my dear, adorable, Your lips of tenderness -- Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well, Three years, or a bit less.

It wasn't a success.

Thank God, that's done!

and I'll take the road, Quit of my youth and you, The Roman road to Wendover By Tring and Lilley Hoo, As a free man may do.

For youth goes over, the joys that fly, The tears that follow fast;

And the dirtiest things we do must lie Forgotten at the last;

Even Love goes past.

What's left behind I shall not find, The splendour and the pain;

The splash of sun, the shouting wind, And the brave sting of rain, I may not meet again.

But the years, that take the best away, Give something in the end;

And a better friend than love have they, For none to mar or mend, That have themselves to friend.

I shall desire and I shall find The best of my desires;

The autumn road, the mellow wind That soothes the darkening shires.

And laughter, and inn-fires.

White mist about the black hedgerows, The slumbering Midland plain, The silence where the clover grows, And the dead leaves in the lane, Certainly, these remain.