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If I should die, think only this of me:

That theres 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 Englands, 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.
The Soldier: Rupert Brooke - Summary and Critical Analysis The Soldier is a sonnet in which Brooke
glorifies England during the First World War. He speaks in the guise of an English soldier as he is
leaving home to go to war. The poem represents the patriotic ideals that characterized pre-war
England. It portrays death for ones country as a noble end and England as the noblest country for
which to die. Rupert Brooke In the first stanza (the octave of the sonnet) stanza, he talks about how
his grave will be England herself, and what it should remind the listeners of England when they see
the grave. In the second stanza, the sestet, he talks about this death (sacrifice for England) as
redemption; he will become a pulse in the eternal mind. He concludes that only life will be the
appropriate thing to give to his great motherland in return for all the beautiful and the great things she
has given to him, and made him what he is. The soldier-speaker of the poem seeks to find redemption
through sacrifice in the name of the country. The speaker begins by addressing the reader, and
speaking to them in the imperative: think only this of me. This sense of immediacy establishes the
speakers romantic attitude towards death in duty. He suggests that the reader should not mourn.
Whichever corner of a foreign field becomes his grave; it will also become forever England. He will

have left a monument of England in a forever England. He will have left a monument in England in a
foreign land, figuratively transforming a foreign soil to England. The suggestion that English dust
must be richer represents a real attitude that the people of the Victorian age actually had. The
speaker implies that England is mother to him. His love for England and his willingness to sacrifice is
equivalent to a sons love for his mother; but more than an ordinary son, he can give his life to her.
The imagery in the poem is typically Georgina. The Georgian poets were known for their frequent
mediations in the English countryside. Englands flowers, her ways to roam, and English air all
represent the attitude and pride of the youth of the pre-industrial England; many readers would excuse
the jingoistic them of this poem if they remember that this soldiers bravery and sense of sacrifice is far
better than the modern soldier and warfare in which there is nothing grand about killing people with
automated machine guns! The soldier also has a sense of beauty of his country that is in fact a part of
his identity. In the final line of the first stanza, nature takes on a religious significance for the speaker.
He is washed by the rivers, suggesting the purification of baptism, and blest by the sun of home. In
the second stanza, the sestet, the physical is left behind in favor of the spiritual. If the first stanza is
about the soldiers thought of this world and England, the second is about his thoughts of heaven and
England (in fact, and English heaven). In the sestet, the soldier goes on to tell the listener what to
think of him if he dies at war, but he presents a more imaginative picture of himself. He forgets the
grave in the foreign country where he might die, and he begins to talk about how he will have
transformed into an eternal spirit. This means that to die for England is the surest way to get a
salvation: as implied in the last line, he even thinks that he will become a part of an English heaven.
The heart will be transformed by death. All earthly evil will be shed away. Once the speaker has
died, his soul will give back to England everything England has given to him- in other words,
everything that the speaker has become. In the octave, the speaker describes his future grave in
some far off land as a part of England; and in the sestet England takes on the role of a heavenly
creator, a part of the eternal mind of God. In this way, dying for England gains the status of religious
salvation, wherever he dies. Wherever he dies, his death for England will be a salvation of his soul. It
is therefore the most desirable of all fates. The images and praises of England run through both the
stanzas. In the first stanza Brooke describes the soldiers grave in a foreign land as a part of England;
in the second, that actual English images abound. The sights, sounds, dreams, laughter, friends, and
gentleness that England offered him during his life till this time are more than enough for him to thank
England and satisfactorily go and die for her. The poet elaborates on what England has granted in the
second stanza; sights and sounds and all of his dreams. A happy England filled his life with
laughter and friends, and England characterized by peace and gentleness. It is what makes
English dust richer and what in the end guarantees hearts at peace, under an English Heaven.
This is a sonnet based on the two major types of the sonnet: Petrarchan or Italian and Shakespearean
or English. Structurally, the poem follows the Petrarchan mode; but in its rhyme scheme, it is in the
Shakespearean mode. In terms of the structure of ideas, the octave presents reflection; the sestet
evaluates the reflection. The first eight lines (octave) is a reflection on the physical: the idea of the
soldiers dust buries in a foreign field. They urge the readers not to mourn this death, though they
implicitly also create a sense of loss. The last six lines (sestet), however, promise redemption: a pulse
in the eternal mind. under an English heaven. The rhyme scheme is that of the Shakespearean

sonnet: the octave and the sestet consist of three quatrains, rhyming abab cdcd efef and a final
rhymed couplet gg. As in Shakespearean sonnets, the dominant meter is iambic.

Suicide in the Trenches


I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced
Who cheer when
Sneak home and
The hell where

crowds with kindling eye


soldier lads march by,
pray you'll never know
youth and laughter go.

Suicide in the Trenches, by the English poet Sigfried Sassoon (1886-1967), is one of the
many poems Sassoon composed in response to World War I. It reflects his own notable
service in that especially bloody conflict. Sassoon was a brave and gallant upper-class officer
who eventually opposed the war, but he never lost his admiration for the common soldiers
who had to fight it. Sassoon felt contempt for the political leaders and civilian war hawks
who, safe in their power and comfort, sent young men off to die in huge battles that seemed
futile and pointless.
Line 1 of the poem is as simple in style as it is in subject. There is nothing complex about its
diction (word choice) or its syntax (sentence structure). This is true, in fact, of the phrasing of
the entire opening stanza, which constitutes one long but very straightforward sentence. The
opening stanza could almost be the opening sentence of a story for children: it is cheerful,
pleasant, and appealing. For instance, the use of the word boy, rather than a reference to a
soldier," helps make the youth sound particularly young and vulnerable; he is simple in
several senses: he is innocent, nave, and not especially sophisticated or well-educated. His
joy is empty (2) in the sense that it arises from no particular provocation. Instead, he is by
nature happy and optimistic, at peace with himself and at peace with the world. He doesnt
try to hide his feelings: he grin[s] at life because he attributes his own good nature to life
itself. He sleeps soundly even through the lonesome dark (3), untroubled by worries,
nightmares, or fears of any kind. In every way, the boy seems at peace with himself and also
in tune with nature (4).
The shift from stanza one to stanza two would have been totally unexpectedand therefore
all the more shockingwere it not for the extremely explicit title of the poem. (One suspects
that Wilfred Owen, a more talented war poet than Sassoon, would have given away much less
information in the title if he had written on this subject and would have been far more subtle

in general.) In any case, the second stanza shifts from the springtime implied in stanza one to
a contrasting emphasis on winter (5). The boy who had no cause for fear in the first stanza
now seems cowed, and while in the first stanza he had grinned (2), now he is glum (5)
a word that sounds as depressing as its meaning.
The word crumps (6) not only refers to the sounds of artillery shells falling in soft soil but
also sounds like the kind of muffled impacts it describes. The reference to crumps thus
helps us hear...

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