Tag Archives: Otto Dix

The Soldier

Flanders. Otto Dix.

 

The Soldier

Rupert Brooke

 

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 of 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.

 

Rupert Chawner Brooke was already a famous poet when he became a symbol in England of the talented youth who lost their lives during World War I.