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9.4
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(23
votes)
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These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
Rupert Brooke
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Read poems about / on: sunset, laughter, dance, sorrow, music, peace, alone, night, change, flower, joy, sky, water, wind
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Comments about this poem (1914 IV: The Dead
by
Rupert Brooke
) |
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comments about this poem (1914 IV: The Dead by
Rupert Brooke
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Albert Ahearn
(10/19/2009 12:42:00 PM) |
Before the war the men’s “hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvelously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colors of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks.” But the war ends all of this.
The war changes laughter and rich skies to “frost” (death) that stops “that dance and wandering loveliness” and his death leaves behind this” white Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, A width, a shining peace, under the night.'
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Kevin Straw
(10/19/2009 8:32:00 AM) |
For other poets, less euphemistic then Brooke, the dead were broken, bleeding, rotting young corpses who had the misfortune to fight in a bloody and senseless war. I find this poem offensive in the extreme. It makes poetry some kind of metaphysical whitewash. I wonder how many soldiers signed up to a probable death with Brooke's words ringing in their ears. This view of war is senseless with regard to any war, and WWI especially. It's no good writing beautiful poetry if at the heart of it is a lie - not a logical lie, but a lie of the heart that does not see what is really there.
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Kevin Straw
(10/19/2009 8:32:00 AM) |
For other poets, less euphemistic then Brooke, the dead were broken, bleeding, rotting young corpses who had the misfortune to fight in a bloody and senseless war. I find this poem offensive in the extreme. It makes poetry some kind of metaphysical whitewash. I wonder how many soldiers signed up to a probable death with Brooke's words ringing in their ears. This view of war is senseless with regard to any war, and WWI especially. It's no good writing beautiful poetry if at the heart of it is a lie - not a logical lie, but a lie of the heart that does not see what is really there.
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Kevin Straw
(10/19/2009 8:26:00 AM) |
For other poets, less euphemistic then Brooke, the dead were broken, bleeding, rotting young corpses who had the misfortune to fight in a bloody and senseless war. I find this poem offensive in the extreme. It makes poetry some kind of metaphysical whitewash. I wonder how many soldiers signed up to a probable death with Brooke's words ringing in their ears. This view of war is senseless with regard to any war, and WWI especially. It's no good writing beautiful poetry if at the heart of it is a lie - not a logical lie, but a lie of the heart that does not see what is really there.
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Kevin Straw
(10/19/2009 8:25:00 AM) |
For other poets, less euphemistic then Brooke, the dead were broken, bleeding, rotting young corpses who had the misfortune to fight in a bloody and senseless war. I find this poem offensive in the extreme. It makes poetry some kind of metaphysical whitewash. I wonder how many soldiers signed up to a probable death with Brooke's words ringing in their ears. This view of war is senseless with regard to any war, and WWI especially.It's no good writing beautiful poetry if at the heart of it is a lie - not a logical lie, but a lie of the heart that does not see what is really there.
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Albert Ahearn
(10/18/2009 1:45:00 AM) |
This sonnet is the fourth of six war sonnets with death as their theme. Beautiful piece of poetry!
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Michael Pruchnicki
(10/18/2008 2:18:00 PM) |
Rupert Brooke died of blood poisoning on his way to war, so his poems reflect the idealism of the early war rather than the horrors that followed. The first stanza (or octet of the sonnet, lines 1-8) paint a vivid picture of life during peacetime. Many young people of his day had indeed been blessed with all the 'human joys and cares'. Daily life was a gorgeous pageant of sound and color, movement and music, friendship and love, moments of quiet reflection in an English garden of scented flowers and lovely companions, a veritable garden of Eden, one might say and Brooke does.
The sestet (lines 9-14) describes the waning of summer days and joys, all the pleasures of youth, to the oncoming of autumn and the first frost. As the seasons change, the flowers die and the rivers and lakes freeze over. Brooke personifies the change with 'Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves' and He (frost) bestows a lovely veneer of 'white unbroken glory'! It is doubtless true that winter has its glories. Witness a vast field of snow and hillsides buried in snow, and you will agree that there is a beauty in the sight. This sonnet is a song to the idealized beauty of death as a young man of his day imagined it.
There is nothing to indicate that Brooke saw the irony in what he was proposing as what was ahead in the Great War for all of Europe. Die honorably? Leave peace? World War I led directly to the horrors of World War II from 1939-1945, and the ensuing Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union. This sonnet was one of many in Brooke's '1914 and Other Poems' (1915) .
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Refia Cinar
(11/15/2005 7:01:00 AM) |
The poet used a great deal of metaphors to make the poem effective.In this way he achieved to make it be full of mistery and emotion.First he describes soldiers as normal human beings; they have sorrows, happiness, they love and are loved etc.But after entering the army, their lives change and differ from other people`s life in some aspects.The most important one is that they die honourably and leave peace and an unerasadle name behind them...
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