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The Goddess In The Wood

By Rupert Brooke

Topics: classic

In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood,     Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning one     Far golden horn in the gold of trees and sun     Rang out; and held; and died. . . . She thought the wood     Grew quieter. Wing, and leaf, and pool of light     Forgot to dance. Dumb lay the unfalling stream;     Life one eternal instant rose in dream     Clear out of time, poised on a golden height. . . .     Till a swift terror broke the abrupt hour.     The gold waves purled amidst the green above her;     And a bird sang. With one sharp-taken breath,     By sunlit branches and unshaken flower,     The immortal limbs flashed to the human lover,     And the immortal eyes to look on death.

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"In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood,..."

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"In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood,..." by Rupert Brooke

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Rupert Brooke

About Rupert Brooke

Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) was an English war poet whose sonnets—including "The Soldier" ("If I should die, think only this of me")—idealized the sacrifice of war. He died of sepsis en route to Gallipoli and became a symbol of the lost generation of WWI.

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