The Poems of Rupert Brooke

By Rupert Brooke

The poetry of Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) remains memorable for its charming lyrical quality and the way in which his sonnets perfectly recapture the mood of England at the start of World War I. This volume reprints his complete oeuvre, from the early lyric poems to those written shortly before his premature death: "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester," "Tiare Tahiti," "The Great Lover," "The Dead," "The Soldier," and many others.
Brooke enlisted in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the war in 1914 and entered the literary scene early the following year, when two of his sonnets ("The Dead" and "The Soldier") appeared in London's Times Literary Supplement.The 27-year-old poet died shortly afterward aboard a ship bound for Gallipoli.  His 1914 and Other Poems was published immediately afterward to wide acclaim. Brooke remains among Britain's best-loved cultural figures, and his works evoke the tranquility of prewar life and the ideals of heroic self-sacrifice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Jul 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9780486847733

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The Poems of Rupert Brooke

DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

GENERAL EDITOR: SUSAN L. RATTINER

EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: MICHAEL CROLAND

Copyright

Copyright © 2020 by Dover Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2020, is an unabridged republication of The Complete Poems of Rupert Brooke, which was originally published by Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London, in 1936. A new introductory note has been specially prepared for this volume.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Brooke, Rupert, 1887–1915, author.

Title: The poems of Rupert Brooke / Rupert Brooke.

Other titles: Poems

Description: Mineola, New York : Dover Publications, Inc., 2020. | Series: Dover thrift editions | This Dover edition, first published in 2020, is an unabridged republication of The Complete Poems of Rupert Brooke, which was originally published by Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., London, in 1936. A new introductory note has been specially prepared for this Volume—Title page verso. | Summary: This volume reprints Brooke’s complete oeuvre, from the early lyric poems to those written shortly before his death: ‘Tiare Tahiti,’ ‘The Great Lover,’ and ‘The Soldier’ — Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019054771 | ISBN 9780486841960 (paperback)

Classification: LCC PR6003.R4 2020 | DDC 821/.912—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019054771

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications

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Note

RUPERT BROOKE WAS born on August 3, 1887, in Rugby, Warwickshire, England. He attended a boarding school where his father was the headmaster. His looks were widely admired, with William Butler Yeats calling him the handsomest young man in England. Beginning in 1906, Brooke studied at King’s College, Cambridge, where he enjoyed acting and was president of the University Fabian Society.

Brooke fell in love with poetry at age nine. This volume includes his poems since 1905, when he won a school poetry award. He published his first poems in 1909. His first book, Poems, was published in 1911. In 1912, he worked on an anthology, Georgian Poetry, 1911–12, which included his The Old Vicarage, Grantchester.

In 1912–13, Brooke struggled with rejection by a woman he loved and confusion about his homosexual desires. After suffering a mental breakdown, he traveled to the United States, Canada, and the South Pacific. He spent three months in Tahiti, where he wrote the best of his poems and [experienced] probably the most unbroken happiness of his life, according to biographer Paul Delany. Highlights from this period include Tiare Tahiti and The Great Lover.

Brooke returned to England in the spring of 1914, shortly before World War I started. He joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, and he did not see combat. He was stationed in Belgium until early 1915. In October 1914, he wrote five sonnets titled Nineteen Fourteen. These poems captured the optimism and enthusiasm England had upon entering the war. His most famous poem, The Soldier, began: If I should die, think only this of me: / That there’s some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.

On Easter in 1915, the dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London read aloud The Soldier. The poem resonated because it captured contemporary attitudes in England. On April 23, blood poisoning caused by an insect bite killed Brooke as he was on a Navy ship in the Aegean Sea. He was twenty-seven years old.

Brooke was inextricably linked to the war sonnets, especially The Soldier. The patriotic poet was mourned throughout England and remembered fondly for his service. Winston Churchill lauded Brooke for his classic symmetry of mind and body. Churchill added, He was all that one would wish England’s noblest sons to be, in days when no sacrifice but the most precious is acceptable.

After England suffered myriad casualties in the remainder of the war, some critics questioned whether Brooke’s selfless willingness to die for his country was naïve.

Contents

Poems: 1905–1911

1905–1908

Second Best

Day That I Have Loved

Sleeping Out: Full Moon

In Examination

Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening

Wagner

The Vision of the Archangels

Seaside

On the Death of Smet-Smet

The Song of the Pilgrims

The Song of the Beasts

Failure

Ante Aram

Dawn

The Call

The Wayfarers

The Beginning

Experiments

Choriambics—I

Choriambics—II

Desertion

1908–1911

Sonnet: Oh! Death Will Find Me

Sonnet: I Said I Splendidly Loved You

Success

Dust

Kindliness

Mummia

The Fish

Thoughts on the Shape of the Human Body

Flight

The Hill

The One before the Last

The Jolly Company

The Life Beyond

Lines Written in the Belief That the Ancient Roman Festival of the Dead Was Called Ambarvalia

Dead Men’s Love

Town and Country

Paralysis

Menelaus and Helen

Lust

Jealousy

Blue Evening

The Charm

Finding

Song

The Voice

Dining-Room Tea

The Goddess in the Wood

A Channel Passage

Victory

Day and Night

Poems: 1911–1914

Grantchester

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

Other Poems

Beauty and Beauty

Song

Mary and Gabriel

Unfortunate

The Busy Heart

Love

The Chilterns

Home

The Night Journey

The Way That Lovers Use

The Funeral of Youth

The South Seas

Mutability

Clouds

Sonnet (Suggested by some of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research)

A Memory

One Day

Waikiki

Hauntings

He Wonders Whether to Praise or to Blame Her

Doubts

There’s Wisdom in Women

Fafaïa

Heaven

The Great Lover

Retrospect

Tiare Tahiti

1914

The Treasure

Appendix

I Strayed about the Deck, an Hour, To-Night

The Dance

Song

Sometimes Even Now I May

Sonnet: In Time of Revolt

A Letter to a Live Poet

Fragment on Painters