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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke
English poet Rupert Chawner Brooke was born in 1887. Popular in both literary and political circles, when Brooke died during The Great War, he became a symbol in England of the tragic loss of talented youth during the war...
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FURTHER READING
Related Poems
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by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Soldier
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The Soldier  
by Rupert Brooke

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.



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About "The Soldier

Rupert Brooke is often considered a "Georgian" poet, referring to the 20th century British movement named in honor of King George V. A soldier during World War I, Brooke died of dysentery and blood poisoning aboard a troop ship. Winston Churchill used the occasion of Brooke's death, as well as his posthumous collection 1914 and Other Poems to reinforce a recruitment drive.
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