Sunday WW1 Poets...

The theme for this month's WW1 poetry 

is

Rupert Brooke

1887 - 1915

(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.

Rupert Brooke wrote this series of poems entitled The Sonnets in the autumn of 1914 following the outbreak of the First World War.

He died from an infected mosquito bite in April 1915 on a French hospital ship on his way to Gallipoli and is buried in an olive grove on Skyros in Greece.


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This rather lovely wood carving of a WW1 Soldier has recently been installed in a local park.


It's by Cheshire wood carver Andy Burgess

The Soldier
Alexandra Park, Wigan

©Picksipics, 2015

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Sunday WW1 Poet...

The theme for this month's WW1 poetry 

is

Rupert Brooke

1887 - 1915

(iv) The Dead

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,

   Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.

The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,

   And sunset, and the colours of the earth.

These had seen movement, and heard music; known

   Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;

Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;

   Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter

And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,

   Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance

And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white

Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,

   A width, a shining peace, under the night.

Rupert Brooke wrote this series of poems entitled The Sonnets in the autumn of 1914 following the outbreak of the First World War.

He died from an infected mosquito bite in April 1915 on a French hospital ship on his way to Gallipoli and is buried in an olive grove on Skyros in Greece.



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Sunday WW1 Poet...

The theme for this month's WW1 poetry 

is

Rupert Brooke

1887 - 1915

(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.

Rupert Brooke wrote this series of poems entitled The Sonnets in the autumn of 1914 following the outbreak of the First World War.

He died from an infected mosquito bite in April 1915 on a French hospital ship on his way to Gallipoli and is buried in an olive grove on Skyros in Greece.




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Sunday WW1 Poet ...

The theme for this month's WW1 poetry 

is

Rupert Brooke

1887 - 1915

(ii) Safety

Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest

   He who has found our hid security,

Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,

   And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?'

We have found safety with all things undying,

   The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,

The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,

   And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.

We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.

   We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.

War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,

   Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;

Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;

And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.

Rupert Brooke wrote this series of poems entitled The Sonnets in the autumn of 1914 following the outbreak of the First World War.

He died from an infected mosquito bite in April 1915 on a French hospital ship on his way to Gallipoli and is buried in an olive grove on Skyros in Greece.



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Sunday WW1 Poet....

The theme for this month's WW1 poetry 

is

Rupert Brooke

1887 - 1915

The Sonnets

(i) Peace

Now, God be thanked Who has watched us with His hour,

And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,

With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,

To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,

Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,

Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,

And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,

And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,

Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,

Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;

Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there

But only agony, and that has ending;

And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

Rupert Brooke wrote this series of poems entitled The Sonnets in the autumn of 1914 following the outbreak of the First World War.

He died from an infected mosquito bite in April 1915 on a French hospital ship on his way to Gallipoli and is buried in an olive grove on Skyros in Greece.



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Sunday War Poet ~ Author's Choice ~ Karen Maitland

I am delighted to welcome to my blog

Author 

Karen Maitland

Sharing her Sunday WW1 Poem

When I was a child I went to stay with an elderly great aunt who’d never married, but who always wore a slender engagement ring. I loved it, but was curious about why she never removed that particular ring, even to do the washing-up. When I finally plucked up the courage to ask her and she said simply - ‘I wear it for someone who never came back.’

Then she went to her bedroom and brought down a faded book of Rupert Brooke’s poems. She opened it at this poem ‘Fragment’ and told me to read it. ‘When you’re old enough to truly understand that poem,’ she said, ‘you’ll understand why I always wear this ring.’

We never spoke of it again, but when she died she left me the book of poems and the ring. I wear the ring constantly myself now. It’s thin with age, but I wouldn't part with it. I never did discover the name of the person she’d lost. Rumour in family was that she was engaged to a First World War pilot who was killed in action. I don’t know if that is true, but I wear the ring for my aunt and for all the unnamed ones who never returned. 

And this poem still chills me. We are all ghosts in waiting.

Fragment ~ Rupert Brooke

I strayed about the deck, an hour, to-night

Under a cloudy moonless sky; and peeped

In at the windows, watched my friends at table,

Or playing cards, or standing in the doorway,

Or coming out into the darkness. Still

No one could see me.

                                          I would have thought of them

—Heedless, within a week of battle—in pity,

Pride in their strength and in the weight and firmness

And link’d beauty of bodies, and pity that

This gay machine of splendour ’ld soon be broken,

Thought little of, pashed, scattered. …

                                                                        Only, always,

I could but see them—against the lamplight—pass

Like coloured shadows, thinner than filmy glass,

Slight bubbles, fainter than the wave’s faint light,

That broke to phosphorus out in the night,

Perishing things and strange ghosts—soon to die

To other ghosts—this one, or that, or I.

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Karen Maitland is the best selling author 

of

    

and

 Due in August 2015

Huge thanks to Karen for sharing her personal memories of this poem and for explaining why
Fragment by Rupert Brooke is so important to her.

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Sunday War Poets...

Rupert Chawner Brooke

1887-1915

The Treasure

When colour goes home into the eyes,

   And lights that shine are shut again,

With dancing girls and sweet birds' cries

   Behind the gateways of the brain;

And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close

The rainbow and the rose: -

Still may Time hold some golden space

   Where I'll unpack that scented store

Of song and flower and sky and face,

   And count, and touch, and turn them o'er,

Musing upon them; as a mother, who

Has watched her children all the rich day through,

Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,

When children sleep, ere night.

August 1914

The Rupert Brooke Society



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