RUPERT BOOKE POEM

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 May 1936, Page 9

RUPERT BOOKE POEM

A SCHOOL PRIZE FAILURE LONDON, March 26. Who wrote the following line which ended a poem in the 1904 competition at Rugby School? “The pale Glory of the Dawn that shall be.” / It was Rupert Brooke, then a schoolboy of 16, whose brief life —ended in the war —was a prize poem in itself. Strangely, however, his 1904 verses on “The Pyramids" did not win the

school prize of that year, but yesterday at Hodgson's rooms the eonjpany of Ridders awarded il the prize value of £2OO (Stonehill). The poem, printed mi eight leaves (one side only), had belonged •to

Brooke's friend, the late Arthur Eckersley, of Rugby, and with it was that of “The Bastille” on four leaves which succeeded in winning the prize in th# following year, 1905. This fetched £lBO (B. F. Stevens). Both bids are remarkable, and show how the young poet’s fame has reached the auction room. On a note which Brooke had enclosed to Eckersley in “The Bastille”

he asked hi®. friends “not to be. too severe on it—after all, it’s only a prize poem.” The reason why the copy of “The Pyramids’’ brought more is due to the fact that, not being a prize poem, it

was not printed by the school authorities. But Rupert Brooke’s. mother, believing in her son’s genius, had the poem printed privately for herself at the School Press.