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 Skyros, a lonely Greek island off which he died, as described by his friend, the composer Denis Browne, who himself died two months later:

he died, with the sun shining all round his cabin, and the cool sea-breeze blowing through the door and the shaded windows. No one could have wished for a quieter or a calmer end than in that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains and fragrant with sage and thyme.

He published only 87 poems, including five war sonnets, of which the most famous begins "If I should die, think only this of me; / That there's some corner of a foreign field / That is for ever England.") 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.