The Beginning

"Some day I shall rise and leave my friends
And seek you again through the world's far ends,
You whom I found so fair
(Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),
My only god in the days that were.
My eager feet shall find you again,
Though the sullen years and the mark of pain
Have changed you wholly; for I shall know
(How could I forget having loved you so?),
In the sad half-light of evening,
The face that was all my sunrising.
So then at the ends of the earth I'll stand
And hold you fiercely by either hand,
And seeing your age and ashen hair
I'll curse the thing that once you were,
Because it is changed and pale and old
(Lips that were scarlet, hair that was gold!),
And I loved you before you were old and wise,
When the flame of youth was strong in your eyes,
-- And my heart is sick with memories." ~ Rupert Brooke.

This is quite the most beautiful poem I have read all of the last month. I read it last night in the ancient book of poems I bought from The Dusty Bookshelf. Do people write like this anymore? Forget writing... do people even think like this anymore? What I consider to be true romance seems to be an anachronism today. Even romantic movies are intolerably melodramatic and embrace a vulgar sort of humor. Self-expression and art is angry and violent... self-obsessed. It is stark, not mellow. The crystal spring is forgotten. The nightingales never sing anymore in any poetry. I am an anachronism too. "-- And my heart is sick with memories."