Observations placeholder
Brooke, Rupert - The Soldier
Identifier
013098
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
I think it is important we do not read this as some patriotic nationalistic poem. One could equally well substitite any place in the lines, as they mean an ideal, some concept of a better place - a sort of 'Jerusalem' or 'Babylon' - a spiritual centre. Incidentally if it had been nationalistic, it would have had no place on this site.
Sunken Road by Frederick Varley
A description of the experience
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.