If I
should die, think only this of me:
That
there's some corner of a foreign field
that is
forever 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
back somewhere 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.
The Soldier, Rupert Brooke, 1914
