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.
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.