Poem by Rupert Chawner Brooke

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.

1. The Great Lover
2. Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening
3. Doubts
4. Second Best
5. The Goddess in the Wood

John Clare The Soldier ("Home furthest off grows dearer from the way")

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