English Poetry. Rupert Chawner Brooke. It’s Not Going to Happen Again. Руперт Брук.

Rupert Chawner Brooke (Руперт Брук)

It’s Not Going to Happen Again

   I have known the most dear that is granted us here,
    More supreme than the gods know above,
   Like a star I was hurled through the sweet of the world,
    And the height and the light of it, Love.
   I have risen to the uttermost Heaven of Joy,
    I have sunk to the sheer Hell of Pain--
   But--it's not going to happen again, my boy,
    It's not going to happen again.

   It's the very first word that poor Juliet heard
    From her Romeo over the Styx;
   And the Roman will tell Cleopatra in hell
    When she starts her immortal old tricks;
   What Paris was tellin' for good-bye to Helen
    When he bundled her into the train--
   Oh, it's not going to happen again, old girl,
    It's not going to happen again.

Chateau Lake Louise, Canada, 1913

Rupert Chawner Brooke’s other poems:

1. The One Before the Last
2. Song (The way of love was thus)
3. The Way That Lovers Use
4. On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess
5. The True Beatitude

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