REMEMBRANCE

As today is the day when we all remember the fallen in two world wars. I thought it appropriate to post the most well known poem written by the young pre-World War 1 poet, Rupert Brooke. He himself entered the war in 1915.  The Dean of St.Paul`s Cathedral, London read this poem from the pulpit on Easter Sunday.  On the 23rd April 1915 (St. George`s Day) Brooke died of blood poisoning in the Aegean Sea on his way to Gallipoli. He was buried on the island of Skyros. He was just 28.

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 of peace, under an English heaven.