"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.
"The Soldier" is a well known poem written in 1914 by English poet Rupert Brooke which an insighful exame of the dangers of romanticizing World War I. This poem has two titles:
i) "The Soldier"
ii) "Nineteen Fourteen: The Soldier"
Ropert Brooke is known for his series of War Sonnets he wrote on Starting of World War I and entitles as 1914 and other poems, this poem stands as the fifth of it and brought out patriotic ideals that characterized pre-war England.
When the poem was written, it was the time when the bodies of servicemen were not regularly brought back to their homeland and they were buried nearby when they died in foreign lands. During first war larger noumber of soldiers were died and buried in England, that provided a great insight to Rupert Brooke in writing this poem. In the poem religion and patriotic language remain at the centre that governs the entire flow of the poem. The soldier in the poem is considering his own death but he is neither regretful or nor horrified but religion, patriotism and romanticism are central to distracting them.
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