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.
Let's remember the soldier before the atrosity of war took away his inocence and his life!
The first half of this poem is just impeccable but im afraid to me it wained a bit in the latter..but thats just personal taste i think...to me the first 8 lines is all that i needed to read....
I am from India I love your poems and this poem was very very nice
One of the best war poems. Thank you. Soldier know the value of home in the mist of war.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
The idea that a dead soldier: Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given... is a bit fanciful to say the least. From my experience of military life I should prefer if most of the soldiers I met kept their thoughts to themselves! A famous poem, but its sentimentality has not worn well seen through the carnage that followed. And Brooke's privileged life was by no means the life that most men and women had whom England bore. I do not think they would have written like this.