I think if you had
loved me when I wanted;
If
I'd looked up one day, and seen your eyes,
And found my wild
sick blasphemous prayer granted,
And
your brown face, that's full of pity and wise,
Flushed suddenly;
the white godhead in new fear
Intolerably
so struggling, and so shamed;
Most holy and far,
if you'd come all too near,
If
earth had seen Earth's lordliest wild limbs tamed,
Shaken, and
trapped, and shivering, for my touch---
Myself
should I have slain? or that foul you?
But this the
strange gods, who had given so much,
To
have seen and known you, this they might not do.
One last
shame's spared me, one black word's unspoken;
And
I'm alone; and you have not awoken.
Back to Rupert Brooke poems: 1908-1911...
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