Poet · Georgian
Rupert Brooke
English poet · 1887–1915
Rupert Brooke was the golden boy of pre-war English poetry — Yeats called him "the handsomest young man in England." His sonnet "The Soldier" ("If I should die, think only this of me") was read from the pulpit of St Paul's Cathedral on Easter Sunday 1915, and overnight he became the voice of a nation's sacrifice.
Weeks later he was dead — not in battle, but of blood poisoning from an infected mosquito bite, on a ship bound for Gallipoli. He was buried in an olive grove on the Greek island of Skyros, aged 27.
His earlier poem "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester," written homesick in a Berlin café, ends with the most wistful question in English poetry: "And is there honey still for tea?"
1 poem by Rupert Brooke
Full text, free to read — all in the public domain.