I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night
Under a cloudy moonless sky; and peeped
In at the windows, watched my friends at table,
Or playing cards, or standing in the doorway,
Or coming out into the darkness. Still
No one could see me.

I would have thought of them
-Heedless, within a week of battle-in pity,
Pride in their strength and in the weight and firmness
And link'd beauty of bodies, and pity that
This gay machine of splendour 'ld soon be broken,
Thought little of, pashed, scattered. ...

Only, always,
I could but see them-against the lamplight-pass
Like coloured shadows, thinner than filmy glass,
Slight bubbles, fainter than the wave's faint light,
That broke to phosphorus out in the night,
Perishing things and strange ghosts-soon to die
To other ghosts-this one, or that, or I.


About This Poem
"Fragment" was published in "The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke: With a Memoir" (Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., 1918).

About Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke was born on Aug. 3, 1887, in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. His books include "Poems" (Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., 1911) and an anthology entitled "Georgian Poetry, 1911-12" (Poetry Bookshop, London, 1912), which he compiled with Edward Marsh. He died on April 23, 1915.

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This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate