ENGLAND'S POET SOLDIER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15948, 19 June 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

ENGLAND'S POET SOLDIER.

DEATH AT THE DARDANELLES. _ , Who would not sing for Lyoidu? He knew himself to build the lofty rhyme. .Milton's great elegy to Lycidas is strangely recalled by the fate which has overtaken Rupert Brooke, the young poet Soldier who has died from sunstroKe in the -Dardanelles, •where he was serving as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Division, says a London jwper.. Only 27, he was.a poet of high promise and a man of charming personality. ■; His father was the late Mr. W. P. Brooke, - assistant master at Rugby, 'He ■ joined .the naval division J immediately on ; the outbreak of ; the war, and was sent with the expedition to Antwerp. Tlirough. that ordeal he came unhurt, and went - into : Blandford training camp for the winter. Then, on February 28, be - sailed for;, the . Dardanelles, where he- has v died on board a French hospital ship. 7He was buried at Lemnos. Rupert Brooke was, if not widely known, yet ;a familiar- name to : those who take pleasure in . contemporary .. poetry. There 4 was ; a charming quality in his work. He was one of •„ four ' contributors to a - quarterly publication devoted entirely to poetry, and issued at Kyton, Dymock, Gloucester. It is nearly two years ago ' since ,he set out on a wander journey through Canada and the United States, and then to a rest-, ing place in the South Sea Islands. ■ By his death one more'tragedy 1 is added 'to t the annals of • poets who have died -in ; the springtime of -their powers. : Like Shelley, this" young poet had a premonition of his death, and his epitaph is to be found in his own verses. He contemplated the fate that has now befallen him with the, same lofty and heroic spirit as ■ that which animated young Gladstone who also gladly laid down his youth and life for England. Rupert -Brooke's beautiful poem is: entitled "The Soldier."- > , • .Vf.

If -1. ihouH die, ' think only this of m«: ■ ' That there's some corner of & foreign field That is for ever England. There Khali be # In'thit rich earth & richer dust concealed; A .dost whom England bore, shaped, made aware. 5 ; :v -i •" I'- ? 'Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways C" .to roam. V , . A body of England's, breathing English air. * Washed by the . rivers, blest by suns of ; ; ;home. i ' And think, this heart,' all evil shed away, \ A poise in the eternal mind, no less , Gives somewhere back, the thoughts by • England given: Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as ; her day;. ! i And laughter, learnt, of friends; and gentleness, 1 In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.