"The Soldier" is a poem written by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915).
The Soldier[]
British war cemetery, Poznan, Poland. Photo by Kapslugan, 2013. Courtsy Wikimedia Commons.
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.
About[]
"The poem is the 5th and last sonnet in a sonnet series by Brooke entitled 1914 (after the year in which the series was written). The manuscript of the poem is located at King's College, Cambridge.
Analysis[]
The Soldier by Rupert Brooke
“The Soldier”, being the conclusion and the finale to Brooke’s ‘1914’ war sonnet series, deals with the death, and continued existence after death, of a World War I soldier.
LIke an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, the poem is divided into an opening octave and a concluding sestet. The rhyme scheme of the octave is that of an Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet (abab cdcd), while the sestet follows a Petrarchan rhyme scheme (efg efg).
The sonnet expresses the patriotic hope of a soldier that his death shall purchase the eternal ownership, by England, of the portion of land where he is buried. In the volta (or point of change) dividing octave from sestet, he moves from talking about his body's continued presence in the earth, to postulating a similar continuation of his "heart" (his soul or consciousness) as a "pulse in the eternal mind."
"The soldier" is often contrasted with Wilfred Owen's 1917 anti-war poem "Dulce et Decorum est".
Recognition[]
Prior to the Apollo 11 landing in 1969, William Safire prepared a speech for U.S. President Richard Nixon to give in case of disaster.[1] The last line of the prepared address intentionally echoes a similar line from the poem.[2] (“For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.”)
In popular culture[]
Poet May Herschel-Clarke wrote an answer poem, "The Mother," written from the point of view of Brooke's speaker's mother.
Robert Radcliffe's World War II Under an English Heaven, by Robert Radcliffe, takes its title directly from the poem.
Lyrics in Roger Waters' “The Gunner's Dream” (from the Pink Floyd album The Final Cut) make reference to “The Soldier”.
Implicit references to this poem (and several others) are made in Muse's song “Soldier's Poem” from their album Black Holes & Revelations.
English singer songwriter Al Stewart makes reference to Brooke in his song “Somewhere in England (1915)” from the album A Beach Full of Shells: “And the maker of rhymes on the deck who is going to die, in the corner of some foreign field that will make him so famous, as the light temporarily shines to illumine his pages.”
The poem is used as the theme for Listener Crossword 4343, Bear, Bear Bearing. The title hints at "Rupert Brook-e", and features from the poem are hidden in the grid.
See also[]
References[]
- ↑ "The Moon Landing: An Undelivered Nixon Speech". http://watergate.info/1969/07/20/an-undelivered-nixon-speech.html.
- ↑ Safire, William (July 12, 1999). "Essay; Disaster Never Came". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/12/opinion/essay-disaster-never-came.html. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
External links[]
- Text
- Audio / video
- "The Soldier" at YouTube
- Full lecture & analysis by Dr. Andrew Barker
- About
- Analyis of "The Soldier" at Move him into the Sun.
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This poem is in the public domain