Song -- Rupert Brooke

(Poem #1872) Song All suddenly the wind comes soft, And Spring is here again; And the hawthorn quickens with buds of green, And my heart with buds of pain. My heart all Winter lay so numb, The earth so dead and frore, That I never thought the Spring would come, Or my heart wake any more. But Winter's broken and earth has woken, And the small birds cry again; And the hawthorn hedge puts forth its buds, And my heart puts forth its pain. -- Rupert Brooke

Note:
  frore (adj., archaic): Extremely cold; frosty.

It's been a while since I ran anything by Brooke - something I thought I'd
amend today. "Song" is actually not a poem I've read before; I was leafing
idly (and a trifle sleepily) through Brooke's collected poems, looking for
some old favourite I might have overlooked, when I was startled into
awareness by the fourth line.

Brooke is usually a poet I find soothing, even at his bitterest - his words
often speak of restlessness and heartache, but they do it with a quiet
melancholy and philosophical tone that convey an unspoken measure of
acceptance. Today's poem stands in sharp contrast - it is stripped of the
usual 'detached observer' voice that runs in constant counterpoint through
most of Brooke's poetry, the words and expression are simple to the extent
that from a lesser poet they'd have degenerated into amateurishness. Here,
instead, the net result is that the words get out of the way, and let the
poem's emotional content through, in a manner very reminiscent of Teasdale
(normally not someone I would compare to Brooke at all).

One of the things I enjoy most about running Minstrels is the way it has
forced a shift in the way I read poetry, from a passive intake of other
people's selections to an active search through reams of verse, looking with
an anthologist's eye for a more than usually good one. Today's poem is an
excellent example of the rewards of such an endeavour - an uncharacteristic
Brooke poem that I'd likely never have come across were I not systematically
reading through his collected works, but one that I am very glad to have
discovered.

martin

[Links]

Wikipedia on Brooke:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Brooke

The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke:
  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7086/brookeidx.htm

The Jolly Company -- Rupert Brooke

Guest poem submitted by Mike Christie:

(Poem #1857) The Jolly Company The stars, a jolly company, I envied, straying late and lonely; And cried upon their revelry: "O white companionship! You only In love, in faith unbroken dwell, Friends radiant and inseparable!" Light-heart and glad they seemed to me And merry comrades (even so God out of heaven may laugh to see the happy crowds; and never know that in his lone obscure distress each walketh in a wilderness). But I, remembering, pitied well And loved them, who, with lonely light, In empty infinite spaces dwell, Disconsolate. For, all the night, I heard the thin gnat-voices cry, Star to faint star, across the sky. -- Rupert Brooke

I have never been a particular fan of Rupert Brooke, but I think he has the
occasional gift for a perfect turn of phrase.  In this case I knew the
phrase before I knew the poem: the last two and a half lines of this poem,
to be exact.  John Wyndham (the author of "The Day of the Triffids") quotes
them in one of his more obscure books, "The Outward Urge".  I read that book
many years ago and loved the lines, but I only recently found the original
poem.

The poem itself is competent, and I am glad to have found it.  But to me it
turns from silver to gold at the end; those two lines are wonderfully
evocative, and bring the poem's theme out with surgical and emotional
precision.

Mike.

PS. I found this version on the web, so if [any Minstrels reader has] a text
to check that would be good, since I have no faith in the accuracy of web
versions.

Peace -- Rupert Brooke

(Poem #1762) Peace Now, God be thanked Who has matched 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

        (1914)

Note: The first sonnet in Brooke's 1914 sequence

Today's poem - challengingly titled "Peace" - marks the first of Brooke's
sequence of five World War I sonnets, commonly called the "1914 sequence".
("The Soldier", perhaps his best known poem, is Sonnet V in that sequence.)
Back when I ran "The Soldier", I noted that the patriotic tone, filtered
through the sensibilities of a post-World-Wars mind, makes these sonnets
seem old-fashioned at best, badly dated at worst. "The Soldier" tended
towards the former end of the spectrum; "Peace", despite is poetic merits,
tends definitely to the latter.

Which is not to say that I dislike the poem - indeed, I found the images of
renewal and cleansing, the almost palpable feeling of a skin being shed,
both finely crafted and powerful. But it would be naive to pretend that a
sentiment like "leave the sick hearts that honour could not move" sounds
anything but misguided today.

An excellent summary from http://www.sonnets.org/wwi.htm captures both sides
of the matter perfectly:

  Although Rupert Brooke's 1914 sonnets received an enthusiastic reception
  at the time of their publication and the author's death (of blood
  poisoning), disenchantment with the ever-lengthening war meant a backlash
  against Brooke's work. These sonnets have been lauded as being "among the
  supreme expressions of English patriotism and among the few notable poems
  produced by the Great War" (Houston Peterson), while according to Patrick
  Cruttwell, "I suspect that these unfortunate poems, through their great
  vogue at first and the bitter reaction against them later, did more than
  anything else to put the traditional sonnet virtually out of action for a
  generation or more of vital poetry in English." But, as you can see here,
  some writers of the period adapted the sonnet to their war experience, and
  it is interesting to speculate on whether Brooke's writing would have
  become as bitter and disillusioned as that of his contemporaries had he
  lived a few years more. See Harry Rusche's Rupert Brooke page, part of his
  Lost Poets of the Great War.

Also, I feel an essential step towards fully appreciating today's poem is to
note its significant personal component - several of the attitudes expressed
are thrown into clearer focus when viewed against Brooke's biography.

martin

[Links]

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/brooke3.html has a few footnotes

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/brooke2.html has more on the Brooke of the 1914
sonnets

Poem #280, "The Soldier", has some more discussion of Brooke's war poetry.

Heaven -- Rupert Brooke

Guest poem sent in by William Grey

(Poem #1579) Heaven Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat'ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And, sure, the reverent eye must see A Purpose in Liquidity. We darkly know, by Faith we cry, The future is not Wholly Dry. Mud unto mud! -- Death eddies near -- Not here the appointed End, not here! But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, Is wetter water, slimier slime! And there (they trust) there swimmeth One Who swam ere rivers were begun, Immense, of fishy form and mind, Squamous, omnipotent, and kind; And under that Almighty Fin, The littlest fish may enter in. Oh! never fly conceals a hook, Fish say, in the Eternal Brook, But more than mundane weeds are there, And mud, celestially fair; Fat caterpillars drift around, And Paradisal grubs are found; Unfading moths, immortal flies, And the worm that never dies. And in that Heaven of all their wish, There shall be no more land, say fish. -- Rupert Brooke

This poem by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) is based on a simple idea, and not an
original one at that -- it is an idea that goes back at least to the ancient
Greek philosopher Xenophanes (c.570 - c.475 BC), who suggested that horses
(if they could draw) would draw the gods like horses, and cattle like
cattle...

It is however a wonderful articulation of the idea -- perhaps germinated in
idle summer reverie on a punt at Grantchester.

William Grey

[Martin adds]

Brooke is one of my favourite 'comfort poets' (by analogy with comfort food) -
I know that I can always pick up one of his poems and be guaranteed a
pleasurable experience. Today's poem is a great example.

Dust -- Rupert Brooke

Guest poem sent in by Vanathi S

(Poem #1244) Dust When the white flame in us is gone, And we that lost the world's delight Stiffen in darkness, left alone To crumble in our separate night; When your swift hair is quiet in death, And through the lips corruption thrust Has still'd the labour of my breath - When we are dust, when we are dust! Not dead, not undesirous yet, Still sentient, still unsatisfied, We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit, Around the places where we died, And dance as dust before the sun, And light of foot and unconfined, Hurry from road to road, and run About the errands of the wind. And every mote, on earth or air, Will speed and gleam, down later days, And like a secret pilgrim fare By eager and invisible ways, Nor ever rest, nor ever lie, Till, beyond thinking, out of view, One mote of all the dust that's I Shall meet one atom that was you. Then in some garden hush'd from wind, Warm in a sunset's afterglow, The lovers in the flowers will find A sweet and strange unquiet grow Upon the peace; and, past desiring, So high a beauty in the air, And such a light, and such a quiring, And such a radiant ecstasy there, They'll know not if it's fire, or dew, Or out of earth, or in the height, Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue, Or two that pass, in light, to light, Out of the garden, higher, higher. . . . But in that instant they shall learn The shattering ecstasy of our fire, And the weak passionless hearts will burn And faint in that amazing glow, Until the darkness close above; And they will know - poor fools, they'll know! One moment, what it is to love. -- Rupert Brooke

The poem's simply beautiful, moving from a dark, quiet
world, from a sense of resignation, to a vibrant,
lively rhythm, powered by hope, and builds towards a
culmination of an ecstasy, and then... there is
nothing. I like the way it lifts the heart and then
disappears, leaving behind a mystical remnant of the
passion. Enjoy!

Vanathi

[Martin adds]

Good to see a Brooke poem in the submission queue - IMO, Georgian poetry is
the most underrated body of verse out there, and I'm always glad to see that
I'm not alone in appreciating it.

Oh! Death Will Find Me, Long Before I Tire -- Rupert Brooke

Posting this on Martin's behalf:

(Poem #1047) Oh! Death Will Find Me, Long Before I Tire Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire Of watching you; and swing me suddenly Into the shade and loneliness and mire Of the last land! There, waiting patiently, One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing, See a slow light across the Stygian tide, And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing, And tremble. And I shall know that you have died, And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream, Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host, Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam -- Most individual and bewildering ghost! -- And turn, and toss your brown delightful head Amusedly, among the ancient Dead. -- Rupert Brooke

Brooke is usually a pleasure to read, and today's playfully romantic poem is
no exception. At first glance, this seems like your average Shakespearean
sonnet - Shakespearean in form, and Shakespearean in its return to the
timeworn themes of love and death. However, the solemnity of the opening
line is quickly and increasingly lightened as the poem progresses -
lightened, too, without ever tipping over the line into frivolity or wit.
For unlike, say, the explicitly humorous 'Sonnet Reversed', this is
definitely a 'serious' poem. It is merely not a *solemn* one - the tone it
chooses to address its subject in is refreshingly different from your
average grinding of Shakespeare's bones for yet another tired loaf of bread.

Despite the poem's apparently morbid theme, the impression the reader is
left with is one of life and laughter - one is reminded, almost, of
Shakespeare's Cleopatra, but without the grandeur - "most individual and
bewildering", as Brooke puts it. The imagery and the word-choices are
handled very well indeed; the narrator's sense of delight in his beloved
sparkles through every verse. The final couplet shifts the focus fully from
the narrator to his subject, providing the reader with a vivid and strongly
visual image that wraps the poem up nicely.

martin.

Links:

  Biography:
    http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7086/brookebionote.htm

  Brooke poems on Minstrels:
    Poem #514, "The Chilterns"
    Poem #280, "The Soldier"
    Poem #589, "Sonnet Reversed"
    Poem #847, "On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess"
    Poem #972, "The Beginning"

The Beginning -- Rupert Brooke

(Poem #972) The Beginning Some day I shall rise and leave my friends And seek you again through the world's far ends, You whom I found so fair (Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!), My only god in the days that were. My eager feet shall find you again, Though the sullen years and the mark of pain Have changed you wholly; for I shall know (How could I forget having loved you so?), In the sad half-light of evening, The face that was all my sunrising. So then at the ends of the earth I'll stand And hold you fiercely by either hand, And seeing your age and ashen hair I'll curse the thing that once you were, Because it is changed and pale and old (Lips that were scarlet, hair that was gold!), And I loved you before you were old and wise, When the flame of youth was strong in your eyes, - And my heart is sick with memories. -- Rupert Brooke

Like Shakespeare, Brooke dwelt in endless detail on love, time and their
interrelationships, though his stance was often diametrically opposed to the
former's -

    And seeing your age and ashen hair
    I'll curse the thing that once you were,
    Because it is changed and pale and old

is a far cry from "Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth".

However, to dismiss today's poem as a disappointed turning-away from an old
and no-longer-attractive love[1] is to oversimplify it. "The Beginning" is
far more complex than that, capturing the conflict of the poet's emotions as
life clashes against memory to the latter's detriment. There is also the
distinct impression that the poet wishes he didn't feel the way he did, as
opposed to merely wishing that his beloved were young and fair forever,
which makes me appreciate the poem a lot more than I do some of Brooke's
others.

[1] which is not an entirely unfair judgement - several of Brooke's poems
*do* reduce to that sentiment

Today's poem is also interesting in its use of tenses, ranging through both
past and future, from "you whom I found so fair" to "I'll curse the thing
that once you were". This adds to its richness - the poet is not simply
lamenting the vanished "flame of youth", he is *anticipating* lamenting it,
knowing both that he is doomed to search for his lost love, and that his
search shall end in pain. And finally, he drops into present tense to wrap
the poem up - but his heartsickness is caused by an imagined future, not a
remembered past.

The verse fits the contents well - just flowing enough to carry along the
sense of reverie, just broken enough to reveal the pain and passion with
which that reverie is fraught. The parenthetical lines and the short third
line are used to good effect to punctuate and structure the poem's shifting
tenses, as are the explicit temporal references with which the poem is
laced. This is not, perhaps, as pleasing or as powerful a poem as some of
Brooke's, but it has a definite beauty to it.

martin

Links:

Biography:
  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7086/brookebionote.htm

Brooke poems on Minstrels:
  Poem #514 "The Chilterns"
  Poem #280 "The Soldier"
  Poem #589 "Sonnet Reversed"
  Poem #847 "On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess"

And the referenced Shakespeare poem:
  Poem #219 "Full many a glorious morning have I seen"

On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess -- Rupert Brooke

Still on the Theme that Refuses to Die - guest poem sent in by Suresh
Ramasubramanian

(Poem #847) On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess Song of a tribe of the ancient Egyptians (The Priests within the Temple) She was wrinkled and huge and hideous? She was our Mother. She was lustful and lewd? -- but a God; we had none other. In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade; We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid. (The People without) She sent us pain, And we bowed before Her; She smiled again And bade us adore Her. She solaced our woe And soothed our sighing; And what shall we do Now God is dying? (The Priests within) She was hungry and ate our children; -- how should we stay Her? She took our young men and our maidens; -- ours to obey Her. We were loathed and mocked and reviled of all nations; that was our pride. She fed us, protected us, loved us, and killed us; now She has died. (The People without) She was so strong; But death is stronger. She ruled us long; But Time is longer. She solaced our woe And soothed our sighing; And what shall we do Now God is dying? -- Rupert Brooke

Speaking of sarcasm, Hippos and religion, this one just has to take the
cake. Blind acceptance of a cruel and savage Deity - till the Deity dies,
leaving priests and people alike fumbling, scared, at a loss.

The frightened priests are busy making up excuses for their cruel rites -
and attributing all of them to the Hippo-Goddess' savage appetites.  The
common people, who have come to accept the cruelty of the Smet-Smet cult,
are at a loss as whatever religion they had - whatever supported their
society - has been destroyed.

Fatalism - the stoic acceptance of a (frequently savage) predestination - is
often the backbone of a religion, especially a religion which is based on
terrorizing its followers into submission.  Now, when the (supposed) arbiter
of Fate herself meets her fate?  A rather interesting state of affairs.

The first thing that I thought of when I read this was that Marx was perhaps
right when he dismissed religion as "The opium of the masses."

As for Brooke - it was a pleasant surprise for me to discover he wasn't just
a war poet (though his war sonnets are among the best I've read).

    "A young Apollo, golden-haired,
    Stands dreaming on the verge of strife,
    Magnificently unprepared
    For the long littleness of life."

These lines were written by Frances Cornford for Brooke, called by W. B.
Yeats, "The most handsome man in England."  Not a very long littleness
though - Brooke died in 1915, aged just 28.  I guess there has been more
than one Brooke bio posted on minstrels already, so I'll just stop here.

-suresh

Biography:
  http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7086/brookebionote.htm

Brooke poems on Minstrels:

  Poem #514 "The Chilterns"
  Poem #280 "The Soldier"
  Poem #589 "Sonnet Reversed"

Sonnet Reversed -- Rupert Brooke

Guest poem submitted by Sunil Iyengar:

(Poem #589) Sonnet Reversed Hand trembling towards hand; the amazing lights Of heart and eye. They stood on supreme heights. Ah, the delirious weeks of honeymoon! Soon they returned, and, after strange adventures, Settled at Balham by the end of June. Their money was in Can. Pacs. B. Debentures, And in Antofagastas. Still he went Cityward daily; still she did abide At home. And both were really quite content With work and social pleasures. Then they died. They left three children (besides George, who drank): The eldest Jane, who married Mr. Bell, William, the head-clerk in the County Bank, And Henry, a stock-broker, doing well. -- Rupert Brooke

Another Georgian poem. We normally acquaint Brooke with sober patriotism
("The Soldier") or English nostalgia ("Grantchester"), and his reputation as
a WWI poet who died at 28 obscures his sense of humor. A lover of Donne,
Brooke reveled in irony and metaphysical conceits, although here we have
plain old wit on the order of Byron. This sonnet starts from the "supreme
heights" of the conventional final couplet, then descends into mundane
realities: the daily commute and family tree, both anticlimactic. I'm
unclear about the references in lines 6 and 7, but the context is
sufficiently developed to secure enjoyment of the poem.

Sunil Iyengar.

[thomas adds]

Balham: district in Wandsworth, Greater London.
Can. Pacs. B. Debentures: securities or bonds in (possibly) Canada Packers.
Antofagastas: Antofagasta is a city in Chile.
        -- http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/brooke6.html

Actually, I think Can. Pacs. is more likely to be the Canadian Pacific
Railway, one of those gigantic engineering projects which the Victorian Era
was famous for. Antofagastas, meanwhile, are probably a slang term for South
American government bonds. (Bond market terminology is a fascinating beast:
you have Treasuries in the USA, Gilts in the UK, Tresors in France, Bunds in
Germany... then there are Yankees, Samurais, Kangaroos... ).

thomas.

The Chilterns -- Rupert Brooke

(Poem #514) The Chilterns Your hands, my dear, adorable, Your lips of tenderness - Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well, Three years, or a bit less. It wasn't a success. Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road, Quit of my youth and you, The Roman road to Wendover By Tring and Lilley Hoo, As a free man may do. For youth goes over, the joys that fly, The tears that follow fast; And the dirtiest things we do must lie Forgotten at the last; Even love goes past. What's left behind I shall not find, The splendor and the pain; The splash of sun, the shouting wind, And the brave sting of rain, I may not meet again. But the years, that take the best away, Give something in the end; And a better friend than love have they, For none to mar or mend, That have themselves to friend. I shall desire and I shall find The best of my desires; The autumn road, the mellow wind That soothes the darkening shires. And laughter, and inn-fires. White mist about the black hedgerows, The slumbering Midland plain, The silence where the clover grows, And the dead leaves in the lane, Certainly, these remain. And I shall find some girl perhaps, And a better one than you, With eyes as wise, but kindlier, With lips as soft, but true. And I daresay she will do. -- Rupert Brooke

Note: The Chilterns are an English range of hills

Today's poem works on a number of levels. It certainly has a touch of
humour, or at least a rather bitter sense of irony, but it is certainly not
a humorous poem - it is at heart both serious and passionate, with a
somewhat morbid outlook remniniscent of Housman, though always balanced by
an element of deft self-mockery.

There is also a strong dash of the 'open road' theme (presaged by the poem's
title), the symbolic connection between wandering and leaving one's past
behind made explicit. And to round things off, the ever popular 'she left
me, but life goes on' theme - which merely goes to prove that unoriginality
of sentiment hurts a good poem not at all.

Construction:

The salient feature of today's poem is clearly the 'extra' line at the end
of each verse. The fifth line serves a dual purpose - it breaks the flow of
the poem, emphasising each verse in isolation, and it provides the perfect
place to either change the mood of, and seamlessly comment on, the preceding
quatrain, or wrap it up with a decisive image or pronouncement.

Links:

The two poets who instantly spring to mind are A. E. Housman and Dorothy
Parker. See, for instance, the former's "When I was One and Twenty":
  poem #86
and the latter's "A Well-Worn Story":
  [broken link] http://www.suck-my-big.org/blah/wellworn.html

Other poets who can flawlessly walk that fine line between pain and
flippancy include Millay, Teasdale and Betjeman - I don't have any
particular poems in mind at the moment, but all of them are well worth
exploring.

We've run one Brooke poem in the past: poem #280

Which links to a biography:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7086/brookebionote.htm

and a commentary on today's poem (recommended - it has a nice appraisal of
Brooke with reference to his times):
http://www.geocities.com/~bblair/990803.htm

-martin

The Soldier -- Rupert Brooke

(Poem #280) 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

Patriotism seems to be somewhat unfashionable nowadays. This is particularly
true with respect to war poetry, where patriotism often seems to be
conflated with jingoism, and spurned by the poet. Nor, in a way, is this
altogether wrong - the two World Wars (and, to a large extent, the poets who
served as their scribes and witnesses, embedding them in the racial memory)
have done a great deal towards deromanticising war, and exposing a sheltered
populace to its grim realities.

This inevitably gives today's poem a slightly old-fashioned flavour - the
poet is not, perhaps, glorifying war, but he certainly understands the
motivations that would encourage young men to 'throw their lives away', and
is not afraid of pronouncing them valid. To quote Margaret Lavington's
wonderful biographical note (see end),

  Each one of these five sonnets faces, in a quiet exultation, the thought
  of death, of death for England; and understands, as seldom even English
  poetry has understood, the unspeakable beauty of the thought:

      "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.

It is interesting to compare Brooke's poem with what is perhaps my favourite
war poem, Yeats' "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death". While at one level
the attitudes are diametrically opposed ("those that I guard, I do not
love", says Yeats' airman, dismissing patriotism as a game he's opted out
of), on a deeper level they are very similar - there is the same sense of
tension, the premonition of death and the deeply personal drive to go to war
anyway, so that the net effect is one not of fear but of a quiet
exhilaration - tinged with sadness, perhaps, but never with regret.

m.

Links:

Yeats' poem is at poem #32

Margaret Lavington's biography is too long to include, so I'll merely point
to it: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7086/brookebionote.htm

And Bob Blair has a nice writeup on one of Brooke's other poems, The
Chilterns, a lot of which is relevant to The Soldier as well:
http://www.geocities.com/~bblair/990803.htm