when colour goes home

when colour goes home into the eyes,

and lights that shine are shut again

with dancing girls and sweet birds’ cries

behind the gateways of the brain;

and that no-place which gave them birth, shall close

the rainbow and the rose

still may time hold some golden space

where i’ll unpack that scented store

of song and flower and sky and face,

and count, and touch, and turn them o’er,

musing upon them; as a mother, who

has watched her children all the rich day through

sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,

when children sleep, ere night.

rupert brooke