The Handsomest Man in England

 

           RUPERT BROOKE (1887-1915)

The Soldier

 If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever 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. 

 

In examining photographs of Rupert Brooke, it is not hard to disagree with William Butler Yeats, the famed Irish poet, who described Brooke as "the handsomest young man in England". Already well known as an accomplished poet, Brooke joined the Royal Navy but died of blood poisoning at the age of 27 on his way to battle in Gallipoli. He became a symbol of the devastating loss so mercilessly visited upon England's talented youth during the Great War (WWI). Rupert's 24-year-old brother, William, would die on the battlefield only a few weeks after his older brother.

 

The poem, "The Soldier", is Brooke's best known sonnet, written not long before his own death. Although buried in Greece, he is commemorated on a slate with other First World War poets in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner.

"The Soldier" has always been one of the poems I treasure most. I've taken the name for this blog from its last line.