Rupert Brooke - The One Before the Last lyrics

The One Before the Last I dreamt I was in love again With the One Before the Last, And smiled to greet the pleasant pain Of that innocent young past. But I jumped to feel how sharp had been The pain when it did live, How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten Were Hell in Nineteen-five. The boy's woe was as keen and clear, The boy's love just as true, And the One Before the Last, my dear, Hurt quite as much as you. Sickly I pondered how the lover Wrongs the unanswering tomb, And sentimentalizes over What earned a better doom. Gently he tombs the poor dim last time, Strews pinkish dust above, And sighs, "The dear dead boyish pastime! But THIS — ah, God! — is Love!" — Better oblivion hide dead true loves, Better the night enfold, Than men, to eke the praise of new loves, Should lie about the old! Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty. But here's the worst of it — I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty, YOU ever hurt abit!