THIS, one of the best-loved of all World War I poems, is often contrasted mockingly with Wilfred Owen's darker work (see yesterday and day before) ~ it certainly was at my school.
But I still like it:
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.
RUPERT BROOKE
1887-1915
DON MCLEAN: THE GRAVE
Whoever put this video together did a spectacular job...
That truly is a lovely poem. :)
ReplyDeleteGood I'm glad someone likes it.
ReplyDeleteI know it is quite famous and appears sometimes on BBC stuff to do with war: but it also gets ridiculed and reviled.
I think the ridiculers are misunderstanding Rupert Brooke's sentiment because he is NOT claiming it to be sweet or noble to die for his country. He is saying if he does die then some part of that country might live on both with him and in the ground
well that's what it says to me
I have always liked that poem, along with In Flanders Fields:
ReplyDeleteIn Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
it's good!
ReplyDeleteany idea who wrote it?
WORLD WAR 1.
ReplyDeleteAll the attention goes to its more dramatic and bloodier sequel, but I would like to research the first war more myself.
They used lots of toxic gas and stuff! It was awful.
That mustard gas was the worst. It appaently burnt up any sensitive membrane open to the air: eyes, lungs, especially... nasty stuff.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, Hitler didn't use it. Perhaps he had other things on his mind.
If I remember rightly the stuff they used on Jews was a nerve agent called Zyclon B. Having seen what nerve agents do to cockroaches I would say that ain't pretty either, but at least it's (probably) a quicker death, at least when you think you're having a shower and there's no way out... ugh I have the most horrible image in my mind now.
I know somebody who said she got a book from the library many years ago about war atrocities ~ from the 1st and 2nd world wars. Torture/etc etc. She said she wished she had never opened its pages. Some things aren't worth knowing about and I share that philosophy now. Some things I would rather not know. If I can do nothing about it, why hurt knowing about it..?