<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Soldier</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">If</span> I should die, think only this of me:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That there's some corner of a foreign field</p><p class="line">That is for ever England. There shall be</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;</p><p class="line">A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Gave once her flowers to love, her ways to roam,</p><p class="line">A body of England's, breathing English air,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And think this heart, all evil shed away,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A pulse in the eternal mind, no less</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;</p><p class="line">Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:4%">In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.</p></div><p class="byline">Rupert Brooke</p></body></html> · Great War