The War Sonnets: V 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.
This is Brooke's best-loved and best-known poem, perhaps because in it he was actually writing his own epitaph. His deep love of his Country is very moving and the respect he shows for the English people is quite evident.The poem is often compared with 'Drummer Hodge' written by Thomas Hardy during the Boer War.http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/6386-Thomas-Hardy-Drummer-HodgeBoth poems sharing the same theme, the death and burial of a young soldier far from home, but this poem is a loving, sentimental poem whereas Hardy's was closer to the harsher realities of war.Brooke is buried in Greece. If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England