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.
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, from a five-poem collection
published in 1914 after the outbreak of the First World War. After enlisting in
the Royal Navy Division, Brooke sailed with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary
force on 28 February 1915 but developed sepsis from an infected mosquito bite.
He died at 4:46 pm on 23 April 1915, on a French hospital ship moored off the
Greek island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea, while on his way to the landing at
Gallipoli. As the expeditionary force had orders to depart immediately, Brooke
was buried at 11 pm in an olive grove on Skyros.
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