| Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Collected Poems. 1916. |
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| II. 1908–1911 |
| 3. Success |
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| 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 | 5 |
| 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? | 10 |
| 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. | |
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