sheridan (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} sheridanwilde) wrote,@ 2006-05-31 19:02:00 |
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| Entry tags: | poetry |
the soldier
Another of the three poems I could recite without referring to a text.
Written by Rupert Brooke, not long before his death. His corner is an olive grove on the Greek island of Skyros.
Available in The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, though you may want to compare and contrast against another war poet, in Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen.
Written by Rupert Brooke, not long before his death. His corner is an olive grove on the Greek island of Skyros.
Available in The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke, though you may want to compare and contrast against another war poet, in Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen.
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.
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.
--
sheridan
http://www.wildewood.co.uk/
