O dear my loves, O faithless, once again This one last gift I give: that after men Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."
When the white flame in us is gone, And we that lost the world's delight Stiffen in darkness, left alone To crumble in our separate night;
When your swift hair is quiet in death, And through the lips corruption thrust Has stilled the labour of my breath-- When we are dust, when we are dust!--
Not dead, not undesirous yet, Still sentient, still unsatisfied, We'll ride the air, and shine and flit, Around the places where we died,
And dance as dust before the sun, And light of foot, and unconfined, Hurry from road to road, and run About the errands of the wind.
And every mote, on earth or air, Will speed and gleam, down later days, And like a secret pilgrim fare By eager and invisible ways,
Nor ever rest, nor ever lie, Till, beyond thinking, out of view, One mote of all the dust that's I Shall meet one atom that was you.
Then in some garden hushed from wind, Warm in a sunset's afterglow, The lovers in the flowers will find A sweet and strange unquiet grow
Upon the peace; and, past desiring, So high a beauty in the air, And such a light, and such a quiring, And such a radiant ecstasy there,
They'll know not if it's fire, or dew, Or out of earth, or in the height, Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue, Or two that pass, in light, to light,
Out of the garden higher, higher ... But in that instant they shall learn The shattering fury of our fire, And the weak passionless hearts will burn
And faint in that amazing glow, Until the darkness close above; And they will know--poor fools, they'll know!-- One moment, what it is to love.
If I should die, think only this of me; That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.