And in my flower-beds, I think, Smile the carnation and the pink. - Rupert Brooke

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud!—Death eddies near—
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.

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 conceal’d;
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. Wash’d 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.

"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.