The Chilterns [excerpt]
(Rupert Brooke)

Your hands, my dear, adorable,
  Your lips of tenderness
- Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well.
  Three years, or a bit less.
  It wasn't a success.  

Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
  Quit of my youth and you,
The Roman road to Wendover
  By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
  As a free man may do. 

For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
  The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest thing we do must lie
  Forgotten at the last;
  Even love goes past. 

What’s left behing I shall not find,
  The splendour and the pain;
The splash of sun, the shouting wind,
  And the brave sting of the rain,
  I may not meet again. 

But the years, that take the best away,
  Give something in the end;
And a better friend than love have they,
  For none to mar or mend,
  That have themselves to friend. 

And I shall find some girl perhaps,
  And a better one than you,
With eyes as wise, but kindlier,
  And lips as soft, but true.
  And I daresay she will do.

mar – ødelegge

Chiltern Hills (or Chilterns) – a range of chalk hills in east-central England, north of the Thames, between the Berkshire Downs and the East Anglian Ridge.