Happy Birthday, Rupert

Today, in 1887, Rupert Brooke was born in Warwickshire, England. He published his first collection of poems in 1911, and it was hugely popular (find his works here). When World War I broke out he wrote to a friend, "Well, if Armageddon's on, I suppose one should be there," and joined up. He died in 1915 of blood poisoning from an infected mosquito bite and is buried on the Greek Island of Skyros. While in the army he wrote five sonnets (of which the most famous begins If I should die, think only this of me), and this:

The Treasure

WHEN colour goes home into the eyes,
And lights that shine are shut again
With dancing girls and sweet birds’ cries
Behind the gateways of the brain;
And that no-place which gave them birth, shall close
The rainbow and the rose:—

Still may Time hold some golden space
Where I’ll unpack that scented store
Of song and flower and sky and face,
And count, and touch, and turn them o’er,
Musing upon them; as a mother, who
Has watched her children all the rich day through
Sits, quiet-handed, in the fading light,
When children sleep, ere night.