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Rupert Brooke 100 years after his death
Examiner ^ | 4/23/2015 | Eleni Sakellis

Posted on 04/23/2015 1:52:51 PM PDT by Borges

April is National Poetry Month. This year also marks the centennial of poet Rupert Brooke’s death on April 23, 1915. He was twenty-seven years old and became a symbol of Lost Youth in the Great War. In his short life, he wrote some of the most famous poems of his generation.

(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...


TOPICS: Books/Literature
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1 posted on 04/23/2015 1:52:51 PM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges
Rupert Brooke 100 years after his death

It's been a long day for me :-( I glanced at the headline and thought, "Rupert's broke 100 years after his death? Heck, 100 years after my death I'll probably be broke too, at least in terms of earthly wealth." Then I looked again...

2 posted on 04/23/2015 1:57:04 PM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: Borges

International day of the book! Great day to read his work.


3 posted on 04/23/2015 1:59:27 PM PDT by tanuki (Left-wing Revolution: show biz for boring people.)
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To: Borges

WWI was a poets war, produced quite a few.


4 posted on 04/23/2015 1:59:37 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Tijeras_Slim

5 posted on 04/23/2015 2:01:49 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Fleas and ticks are like vampires - but not the good kind.)
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To: Borges
He was twenty-seven years old...

One of the 27 club.

6 posted on 04/23/2015 2:10:46 PM PDT by Veggie Todd (The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. TJ)
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To: Tax-chick

Here’s a collection of one’s published in Stars and Stripes in 1921.

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101074206291;view=1up;seq=1

My Great Grandfather contributed with “The Message” on page 23.


7 posted on 04/23/2015 2:12:30 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Tijeras_Slim

A little weak on the scansion, but obviously heart-felt.


8 posted on 04/23/2015 2:18:32 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Fleas and ticks are like vampires - but not the good kind.)
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To: Borges

Or as Radar called him, “Ruptured Brooke.”


9 posted on 04/23/2015 2:20:28 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator

“I think I’ve been slaked!”


10 posted on 04/23/2015 2:24:20 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Fleas and ticks are like vampires - but not the good kind.)
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To: Tax-chick

One of my favorite MASH episodes.


11 posted on 04/23/2015 2:25:19 PM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Borges
Probably his best known WWI work:

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

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,

Washed 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.

Rupert Brooke

12 posted on 04/23/2015 2:25:24 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: dfwgator

Radar’s exposure to Culture was a recurring theme. “Aaaah, Bach!”


13 posted on 04/23/2015 2:30:03 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Fleas and ticks are like vampires - but not the good kind.)
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To: Tax-chick

He was a civil engineer, who by the time of the war, specialized in sewer systems (the coming thing). He’d lied about his age to get in the Spanish American War, and thought the Puerto Rican campaign great adventure. WWI changed his view, having participated in the second battle of the Marne, especially on the Vesle River. After attempting to cross a small bridge under fire, the American forces in Fismette we set upon by German troops with flame throwers.


14 posted on 04/23/2015 2:34:49 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Tijeras_Slim
the American forces in Fismette we set upon by German troops with flame throwers

That'll change your perspective. But seriously, it's a sad piece, because, of course, we just went and did it again, before the bodies were cleared from the first round.

15 posted on 04/23/2015 2:38:31 PM PDT by Tax-chick (Fleas and ticks are like vampires - but not the good kind.)
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To: chajin

This is scary: I initially made the same reading mistake.


16 posted on 04/23/2015 4:34:17 PM PDT by Bigg Red (Let's put the ship of state on Cruz Control with Ted Cruz.)
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To: centurion316; Borges
Thank you posting his poem - The Soldier.

I went up to my store of books in my attic. Once again I perused my Sidgewick & Jackson copy 1950 28th reprint. I know that Brooke was taken ill in Egypt. He was on the way for the great but tragic enterprise at Gallipoli. He unwisely discharged himself from hospital to be with his men. He weakened from blood poisoning and died aboard ship en route.

Brooke was a romantic and saw himself in the mold of Spartan warriors of another armada. This was of the Greeks who went to Troy. This was to take the beautiful Helen back to the Greek king. She had absconded with a Trojan Prince.

In keeping with the poem he was buried on a small Greek Island. It is beautifully kept and friendly Greeks take a few odd pilgrims to pay homage.

Excuse the ramble. I shall once more chuckle over Brookes poems to the girls who rejected him. They liked him, but opted for an established man with a professional occupation, to compliment their life style. Brooke as an absolute romantic had no career plan, save writing and travelling.

17 posted on 04/23/2015 4:45:16 PM PDT by Peter Libra
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To: Peter Libra

Brooke was best known among his fellow poets. His Great War experience was a little outside the mainstream. He served in the Royal Naval Division, an infantry formation, but they were technically sailors. He was a Naval officer. He participated in the attack on Antwerp, so was far away from the Western Front, and then was enroute to Gallipoli when took ill. His poet, therefore, did not capture the particular of known by so many who fought and died in the trenches of Flanders and France.

Romantic he certainly was.


18 posted on 04/23/2015 4:55:16 PM PDT by centurion316
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To: Borges
Rupert Brooke on the outbreak of war:

Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping!
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary;
Leave the sick hearts that honor could not move

I wonder, would he still feel the same had he lived to see Gallipoli, the Somme, Verdun and Passchendaele....not to mention the Versailles treaty and the rise of Hitler.

19 posted on 04/23/2015 5:02:42 PM PDT by Eric Pode of Croydon (I wish someone would tell me what "diddy wah diddy" means.....)
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To: Eric Pode of Croydon
It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.... --Robert E Lee
20 posted on 04/23/2015 5:13:02 PM PDT by onedoug
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