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
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.