Brook served in the British army during W.W.I and died of blood poisoning in 1915. Partly because he was well-educated, young, and handsome when he died, his poetry may have been given greater importance than it would have if he had survived the war. His sonnet “The Soldier” was read in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London on Easter Sunday, 1915 and then printed in the London Times before his death. It was popular immediately. It is one of the most famous poems of W.W.I. Two parts of it are below. (Adapted from World War I British Poets, edited by Candace Ward, Dover, 1997.)
III. THE DEAD
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain,
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again.
And we have come into our heritage.
V. 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.
SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886-1967):
Sassoon also served in the British military during W.W. I and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery. He originally perceived the war as just, but by 1917 he had come to believe that it was being prolonged needlessly and that it was a war of aggression and conquest in which he could no longer in good conscience participate. His written denunciation of the war was printed in the press. Instead of having to face a court-martial, however, he was tried by a medical board, which concluded that he was suffering from severe shell shock. He was sent to a military hospital to recuperate, and wrote some of his best poems while there. (Adapted from World War I British Poets, edited by Candace Ward, Dover, 1997.)
“THEY”
The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought
In a just cause: they lead the last attack
On Anti-Christ; their comrade’s blood has bought
New right to breed an honorable race.
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.’
‘We’re none of us the same!’ the boys reply.
‘For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind;
Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die;
And Bert’s gone syphilitic: you’ll not find
A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change.’
And the Bishop said: ‘The ways of God are strange.’
“THE ONE-LEGGED MAN”
Propped on a stick he viewed the August weald;
Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted cowls;
A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field,
With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.
And he’d come home again to find it more
Desirable than ever it was before.
How right it seemed that he should reach the span
Of comfortable years allowed to man!
Splendid to eat and sleep and choose a wife,
Safe with his wound, a citizen of life.
He hobbled blithely through the garden gate,
And thought: ‘Thank God they had to amputate!’
QUESTIONS:
A common saying among British troops was “Went to war with Rupert Brooke, came home with Siegfried Sasson.” What do you think was meant by this?
What does Khan mean in her comment about Underhill’s poem?
Brittain’s poem is structured around the four seasons. Why might this be?
Whose poems would have been found most comforting to those at home, and why?