Now, God be thanked who has matched us with His hour,
      And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
    With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
      To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping.

To those who tell us England is grown old and fat and soft, there is the answer.  It is no hymn of hate that England’s youth has sung, but the farewell of those who, loving life with infinite zest, have yet found in surrendering it to her the Beauty, the Certainty, yes and the Quiet, which they had sought.  On those five pages are packed in simple words all the love of life, the love of woman, the love of England that make Brooke’s memory sweet.  Never did the sonnet speak to finer purpose.  “In his hands the thing became a trumpet”—­

THE DEAD

    Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! 
      There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,
      But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. 
    These laid the world away; poured out the red
    Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
      Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
      That men call age; and those who would have been,
    Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

    Blow, bugles, blow!  They brought us, for our dearth
      Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain. 
    Honour has come back, as a King, to earth,
      And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
    And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
      And we have come into our heritage.

It would be misleading, perhaps, to leave Brooke’s poetry with the echo of this solemn note.  No understanding of the man would be complete without mentioning the vehement gladness and merriment he found in all the commonplaces of life.  Poignant to all cherishers of the precious details of existence must be his poem The Great Lover where he catalogues a sort of trade order list of his stock in life.  The lines speak with the very accent of Keats.  These are some of the things he holds dear—­

                    White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
    Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
    Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
    Of friendly bread; and many tasting food;
    Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
    And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
    And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
    Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
    Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
    Smoothe away trouble; and the rough male kiss
    Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
    Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
    Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
    The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
    The good smell of old clothes; and other such—­
     ...All these have been my loves.