Home

Rest, rest - there is no rest,
Until the quiet grave
Comes with its narrow arch
The heart to save
From life's long cankering rust,
From torpor, cold and still -
The loveless, saddened dust,
The jaded will.

And yet, be far the hour
Whose haven calls me home;
Long be the arduous day
Till evening come;
What sureness now remains
But that through livelong strife
Only the loser gains
An end to life?

Then in the soundless deep
Of even the shallowest grave
Childhood and love he'll keep,
And his soul save;
All vext desire, all vain
Cries of a conflict done
Fallen to rest again;
Death's refuge won.

Walter De La Mare

Walter De La Mare was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and his poem "The Listeners". Born in 1873 in Charlton, Kent, De La Mare's unique blend of haunting, dreamlike imagery and masterful command of language earned him a lasting place in English literature. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1953, and his works continue to be celebrated for their ethereal and evocative quality.

Walter De La Mare

Winter

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Falstaff

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

To Margot

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Little Bird

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Haunted

The rabbit in his burrow keeps
No guarded watch, in peace he sleeps;
The wolf that howls in challenging night
Cowers to her lair at morning light;
The simplest bird entwines a nest
Where she may lean her lovely breast,
Couched in the silence of the bough.
But thou, O man, what rest hast thou?

Thy emptiest solitude can bring
Only a subtler questioning
In thy divided heart. Thy bed
Recalls at dawn what midnight said.
Seek how thou wilt to feign content,
Thy flaming ardour's quickly spent;
Soon thy last company is gone,
And leaves thee - with thyself - alone.

Pomp and great friends may hem thee round,
A thousand busy tasks be found;
Earth's thronging beauties may beguile
Thy longing lovesick heart awhile;
And pride, like clouds of ...

Walter De La Mare

Haunted

The rabbit in his burrow keeps
No guarded watch, in peace he sleeps;
The wolf that howls into the night
Cowers to her lair at morning light;
The simplest bird entwines a nest
Where she may lean her lovely breast,
Couched in the silence of the bough;
But thou, O man, what rest hast thou?

The deepest solitude can bring
Only a subtler questioning
In thy divided heart; thy bed
Recalls at dawn what midnight said;
Seek how thou wilt to feign content
Thy flaming ardour's quickly spent;
Soon thy last company is gone,
And leaves thee - with thyself - alone.

Pomp and great friends may hem thee round,
A thousand busy tasks be found;
Earth's thronging beauties may beguile
Thy longing lovesick heart awhile;
And pride, like clouds of sunset, ...

Walter De La Mare

Life

Hearken, O dear, now strikes the hour we die;
We, who in our strange kiss
Have proved a dream the world's realities,
Turned each from other's darkness with a sigh,
Need heed no more of life, waste no more breath
On any other journey, but of death.

And yet: Oh, know we well
How each of us must prove Love's infidel;
Still out of ecstasy turn trembling back
To earth's same empty track
Of leaden day by day, and hour by hour, and be
Of all things lovely the cold mortuary.

Walter De La Mare

Where Is Thy Victory?

None, none can tell where I shall be
When the unclean earth covers me;
Only in surety if thou cry
Where my perplexed ashes lie,
Know, 'tis but death's necessity
That keeps my tongue from answering thee.

Even if no more my shadow may
Lean for a moment in thy day;
No more the whole earth lighten, as if,
Thou near, it had nought else to give:
Surely 'tis but Heaven's strategy
To prove death immortality.

Yet should I sleep - and no more dream,
Sad would the last awakening seem,
If my cold heart, with love once hot,
Had thee in sleep remembered not:
How could I wake to find that I
Had slept alone, yet easefully?

Or should in sleep glad visions come:
Sick, in an alien land, for home
Would be my eyes in their bright beam;
Aw...

Walter De La Mare

Vain Questioning

What needest thou? - a few brief hours of rest
Wherein to seek thyself in thine own breast;
A transient silence wherein truth could say
Such was thy constant hope, and this thy way? -
    O burden of life that is
    A livelong tangle of perplexities!

What seekest thou? - a truce from that thou art;
Some steadfast refuge from a fickle heart;
Still to be thou, and yet no thing of scorn,
To find no stay here, and yet not forlorn? -
    O riddle of life that is
    An endless war 'twixt contrarieties.

Leave this vain questioning. Is not sweet the rose?
Sings not the wild bird ere to rest he goes?
Hath not in miracle brave June returned?
Burns not her beauty as of old it burned?
    O foolish one to roam
    So far in thine own mind away from home...

Walter De La Mare

The Old Men

Old and alone, sit we,
Caged, riddle-rid men;
Lost to Earth's "Listen!" and "See!"
Thought's "Wherefore?" and "When?"

Only far memories stray
Of a past once lovely, but now
Wasted and faded away,
Like green leaves from the bough.

Vast broods the silence of night,
The ruinous moon
Lifts on our faces her light,
Whence all dreaming is gone.

We speak not; trembles each head;
In their sockets our eyes are still;
Desire as cold as the dead;
Without wonder or will.
And One, with a lanthorn, draws near,
At clash with the moon in our eyes:
"Where art thou?" he asks: "I am here,"
One by one we arise.

And none lifts a hand to withhold
A friend from the touch of that foe:
Heart cries unto heart, "Thou art old!"
Ye...

Walter De La Mare