| Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Collected Poems. 1916. |
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| V. The South Seas |
| 9. One Day |
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| TODAY I have been happy. All the day | |
| I held the memory of you, and wove | |
| Its laughter with the dancing light o’ the spray, | |
| And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love, | |
| And sent you following the white waves of sea, | 5 |
| And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth, | |
| Stray buds from that old dust of misery, | |
| Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth. | |
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| So lightly I played with those dark memories, | |
| Just as a child, beneath the summer skies, | 10 |
| Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone, | |
| For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old, | |
| And love has been betrayed, and murder done, | |
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.
THE PACIFIC, October 1913. | |
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