The Hill
by Rupert Brooke

English poet. His two best-known poems are The Old Vicarage, Grantchester (1912), published in Georgian Poetry 1911-1912 by his friend, Edward Marsh, and The Soldier (1914), a war-inspired sonnet. Other fine poems he wrote include Retrospect (1913) and Tiare Tahiti (1913). He also wrote a one-act play, Lithuania (1915), and Letters from America, for which Henry James wrote a preface in 1916. As a war poet, his work is more idealistic than those of other war poets such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.

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The Hill
by Rupert Brooke

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, and birds sing still,
When we are old, are old...." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips" said I,
"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"

"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!".... Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
- And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

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The Hill by Rupert Brooke