This time of year, I re-post the series The War Poets. Just some of the men and women who served on the front line on all sides of the conflict who fought, died or returned scarred by their experiences.
They are going out at 4.a.m each morning my time, which is the coldest before the dawn, and as they would have woken in the trenches to prepare for another day of horror, bravery and sacrifice.
We often dismiss the words of the young due to their lack of life experience. However there was no such lack in the lives of the youthful poets who experienced the dreadful events of the First and Second World War. Today a poet whose work I first read as a teenager in an old poetry book I found on the shelves in our home. It had a profound effect on me and the way I viewed conflict.
Here is the podcast for the post.
Rupert Brooke
Poetry has played an enormous role in our history particularly when telling the stories of heroes and heroines through the ages. Very popular during Victorian times, verse was used prolifically to proclaim love, poke fun at politicians and big wigs as well as to honour bravery in service to Queen and Country. Poetry was as widely read as novels and in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, a number of our most well-known poets were born producing some of our most loved verses.
I am by no means a poetry expert but I have found that verse is very individual and that you enjoy those pieces which reflect events and emotions in your own life.
For example; as a teenager I found a book of Rupert Brooke’s poems on a bookshelf at home and there were one or two at that age that I understood and enjoyed. However, as I have got older and revisited his work and other poets, I realise that my own life’s experience enables me to appreciate their work in a more profound way. Although Rupert Brooks is best known for his war poems such as The Soldier, there are others that also reflect his experiences of love and life beautifully, despite his own youth.
Like many of the poets of the first part of the 20th century Rupert Brooke was caught between the Victorian strait laced puritanism and the liberal 20’s. He was a bit of a jack the lad, considered an Adonis by both men and women. In his short life he loved both; mainly those within the growing social and intellectual societies such as the Fabians.
Anyway a little biography of this talented young poet.
Rupert Chawner Brooke was born on 3rd August 1887 second son to William Parker Brooke a housemaster at Rugby school and his wife Ruth Cotterill. Rupert attended both the preparatory and main schools before going up to King’s College, Cambridge where he studied the classics, somewhat badly, as he was more interested in literature and acting. At the end of his third year he turned his attention to literature and moved out of Cambridge to Grantchester. Here he and his circle of friends embraced the country life whilst developing interest politics and in the growing socialist reforms as members of the “Fabian Society”.
In 1911 Rupert spent time in Munich learning German before returning to Grantchester to work on his fellowship at King’s. At the same time he completed his first volume of Poems which in the next 20 years was reprinted 37 times at around 100,000 copies.
In 1913 Rupert was finally awarded his Fellowship at King’s but did not take it up immediately choosing to travel to New York, Canada, San Francisco and New Zealand before settling on Tahiti; living with a Tahitian beauty Taatamata.
However, running out of money and suffering from a bad infection from coral poisoning, Rupert returned to England in mid-1914. He took up his fellowship at King’s but his idealism gained new focus with the onset of War. On September 15th he applied and was accepted for a commission in the Royal Naval Division and embarked with his battalion to defend Antwerp from the German Advance.
The War Years
Antwerp fell to the Germans and the battalion returned to England and over the next three months Brooke’s company re-equipped and despite a period of illness Rupert embarked on a ship to the Dardanelles on February 27th 1915. Over the next two months the battalion spent time in Malta, Lemnos and Eygpt as they attempted to reach the front.
Rupert suffered another bout of ill health including sunstroke and dysentery. Senior officers, aware of his growing fame as both a poet and potential influential politician, decided he should be kept away from the front lines, offering him a staff job that he refused.
On Saturday 10th April 1915, Brooke’s troopship left Port Said for Lemnos via the Island of Skyros. They arrived there on Saturday 17th April, The officers and men landed on Skyros and conducted exercises but on 20th April Rupert Brooke fell seriously ill with blood poisoning. His system already weakened by several bouts of infection he could not overcome this latest illness, and on April 23rd he died aboard ship aged 27.
He had commented on the beauty and peace of a particular olive grove on the island and was buried there by his fellow officers amongst the scent of flowering sage.
The poem The Soldier has stood the test of time and is as evocative today as it was nearly 100 years ago. Especially as we prepare to honour the young men and women who have served and died. Not only for our own countries, but all those in any conflict around the world.
1914 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.
Buy Rupert Brooke complete works : Amazon UK – And: Amazon US
Find out more about Rupert Brooke: Wikipedia
Thank you for dropping in today… Sally.
Thanks, Sally. It is such a heartwrenching poem. It is terrible to think so many more young men went on to experience similar things. Thanks for helping us remember them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Olga.. no country was untouched by this war and those that followed..♥
LikeLike
Pingback: Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Weekly Round Up – 7th- 13th November – Remembrance, Anniversary, 1982 Hits, Book reviews, Guest Bloggers, Health and Laughter | Smorgasbord Blog Magazine
Pingback: My Tribute to the Fallen | Stevie Turner
So lovely to hear you read the poem. Perfect.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks very much Darlene ♥
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for sharing the poem and the writer with readers, Sally. I’m greatly moved. 💗
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks very much Gwen…♥♥
LikeLike
Heartwrenching Sal, and yet a wonderful reminder for everyone. ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Debby…♥
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a powerful poem! Thank you for sharing, Sally, and it was wonderful to learn more about this poet!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Jan…hugsx
LikeLike
A terrific poem and remarkable sentiment. The poem must have comforted many who have lost loved ones buried far from home. The idea that that spot represents home is powerful indeed. An excellent post, Sally
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks John.. and yes I am sure it did bring comfort.. my sister managed to track down our grandfather’s grave to a small village just south of the Belgium border.. He is buried in a separate cemetary under the auspices of the War Grave Commission along with 20 others who were killed at the same time and one lone World War II fighter pilot who had no identification.. They put his grave right in the middle of the others so he would have company.. We managed to go twice to visit and it was very emotional for my mother who was only 12 months old when he was killed.. xxx
LikeLiked by 1 person
None of those in my family who served are buried outside the US, but it just struck me that if that happened, the poem would provide some comfort.
LikeLiked by 1 person
♥
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember this one from the last time you posted it, Sally. It’s so gut-wrenching and wistfully sad. What a tragedy to lose this man and so many others. I’m grateful that you shared Brooke and his poem again. Worthy of remembrance.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Diana.. ♥
LikeLiked by 1 person
How lovely is that poem. Thanks for the info about his life. I knew he died young, but didn’t know much about him. x
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks Stevie..hugsxx
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautifully powerful, Sally. The more I read about WWI and II, the more horrified I am at what these young men had to endure – Vietnam, Afghanistan – it never changes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree Noelle.. the First World War was meant to be the war to end all wars…said I am sure to placate the loved ones of those that died or never fully recovered.. hugsxx
LikeLiked by 1 person
A moving piece, Sally. It sounds as though the poet lived quite a life. Thanks for sharing. Hugs 💕🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
He was a bit of a lad Harmony.. but his poetry did move people.. I heard this poem quite a bit growing up in a service family and attending remembrance services..hugsx
LikeLiked by 1 person
A classic that still has the power to move me as much as the first time I heard it. xx
LikeLiked by 2 people
I agree Alex.. it does not age or lose its potency..♥
LikeLiked by 1 person
Its very heart touching. I have to admit, I never thought about wartime poetry. Thanks for remembering, Sally, to look for something similar in Germany as well. hugsx Michael
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks Michael and I am sure that there are equally emotive pieces on both sides of the conflict.. just ordinary young men doing their duty according to the dictates of a few individuals.. hugsx
LikeLike
Reblogged this on OPENED HERE >> https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you for sharing Michael..hugsx
LikeLiked by 1 person
:-)) xx
LikeLiked by 1 person
Powerful, Sally. Xo
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks Denise..hugsxx
LikeLiked by 2 people