The Full Text of “The Soldier”
1If I should die, think only this of me:
2 That there’s some corner of a foreign field
3That is for ever England. There shall be
4 In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
5A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
6 Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
7A body of England’s, breathing English air,
8 Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
9And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
10 A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
11 Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
12Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
13 And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
14 In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
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“The Soldier” Introduction
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"The Soldier" is a poem by Rupert Brooke written during the first year of the First World War (1914). It is a deeply patriotic and idealistic poem that expresses a soldier's love for his homeland—in this case England, which is portrayed as a kind of nurturing paradise. Indeed, such is the soldier's bond with England that he feels his country to be both the origin of his existence and the place to which his consciousness will return when he dies. The poem was a hit with the public at the time, capturing the early enthusiasm for the war (before the grim realities of longterm conflict made themselves known). Nowadays, the poem is seen as somewhat naïve, offering little of the actual experience of war. That said, it undoubtedly captures and distills a particular type of patriotism.
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“The Soldier” Summary
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If I die in the war, I want to be remembered in a particular way. Think of how the far-off land on which I die will have a small piece of England forever. That earth will be enriched by my dead body, because my body is made from dirt born in England. England created me and gave me consciousness, gave me her blooming plants to fall in love with, and gave me my sense of freedom. My body belongs to England, has always breathed English air. England's rivers cleansed me, and I was blessed by England's sun.
Also consider the way in which my soul, through death, will be made pure. My consciousness will return to the immortal consciousness like a beating pulse, and return the beautiful thoughts that England gave me. I'll return the sights and sounds of my home country; to the beautiful dreams that were as happy as England's daytime; and to the laughter shared with English friends. And I'll return England's gentleness, which lives in the English minds that are at peace under the English sky (the English heaven where I will be at peace too when I die).
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“The Soldier” Themes
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War, Patriotism, and Nationhood
“The Soldier” explores the bond between a patriotic British soldier and his homeland. Through this soldier’s passionate discussion of his relationship to England, the poem implies that people are formed by their home environment and culture, and that their country is something worth defending with their life. Indeed, the soldier sees himself as owing his own identity and happiness to England—and accordingly is willing to sacrifice his life for the greater good of his nation. This is, then, a deeply patriotic poem, implicitly arguing that nations have their own specific character and values—and that England’s are especially worthy of praise.
Though most people might fear death—particularly of the violent kind that war can bring—the speaker of “The Soldier” is prepared to die because he believes hew would be doing it for his beloved homeland. The speaker thus doesn’t want people to grieve his death. He sees that potential death—in some “foreign field” (notably “foreign” because it won’t be in England)—as a way of making a small piece of the world “for ever England.” That’s because he sees himself as an embodiment of his nation. Accordingly, dying somewhere “foreign” leaves a small part of the home nation in that foreign land. Nationhood, then, is portrayed as something that is inseparable from a person’s identity—even when they die.
Indeed, the speaker feels he owes his identity itself primarily to his country. It was the personified England that “bore” and “shaped” him, nourished him with sun (ironic, given the often gloomy weather!) and air, and cleansed him with “water.” Much of the sonnet’s octave—the eight-line stanza—is devoted to creating a sense of England as a pastoral, idyllic, and even Eden-like place. The poem’s imagery of rivers, flowers, earth, air, and sun, is part of an attempt to transform nationhood from a human concept to something more fundamental and natural (all the while tied to England specifically), as though the land is infused with the character of its people and vice versa.
In fact, this nationhood is so deeply embedded in who people are—or so the poem argues—that it extends beyond the earthly realm. Even the heaven that the speaker hopes to go to is specifically an “English heaven.” In part, that’s because the speaker’s idea of heaven is a projection of how he sees England—apart from being a kind of natural and nurturing mother, England is already a kind of heaven. Indeed, the poem presents England and heaven as almost interchangeable—as described above, everything about England is supposedly pure and nourishing. The speaker’s consciousness, after he dies, will return to an “eternal mind” which will still be forever linked to the place that created it.
There is nothing in the poem, then, of the horrors of war. Indeed, there is very little of the realities of war at all. This perhaps explains why the poem has inspired strong reactions ever since its publication. It was immensely popular when it was published in 1914, but this was before the true horrors of the First World War had been fully revealed, a time when the war was still tinged with an air of excitement, anticipation, and, of course, patriotism. In the decades that followed, some critics saw Brooke’s poetry as woefully naïve and sentimental. Either way, the poem is a powerful expression of patriotic desire and belief in the bond between people and their homeland.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Soldier”
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Lines 1-4
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;The poem's title sets up the idea that, rather than being one particular individual, this speaker stands for a particular type of person more broadly—the patriotic soldier. The speaker is an archetype, a kind of idealized version of how a soldier ought to be.
The first line of the poem lays down its opening gambit, implying that people need not grieve the speaker's death for reasons that are about to follow. This is typical of the poem's form: sonnets are often like arguments in miniature, in the sense that they often open with an assertion that the rest of the poem must go on to prove. This poem's point to prove is that people should not be sad about the speaker's death—and line 2 begins the reasoning behind this assertion.
This poem is deeply patriotic about England—and it's this patriotism that is behind the speaker's logic. He asserts that, when he dies in a far off "foreign field," his fallen body will in turn make wherever he dies a part of England too. In other words, his bodily remains will continue to exude Englishness. The way that line 2 enjambs into line 3 makes this phrase stretch into the next line, the last word placed far-away from the first in order to imitate the soldier's own travels to foreign lands. The caesura after "England" in line 3 works with this, creating a powerful pause that impresses upon the reader the significance of the soldier's home nation.
After that caesura, the poem uses its first metaphor—though it is one grounded in reality too. Imagining the location of his future death, the speaker compares his own body to the earth's soil. Because the speaker is essentially a part of England, his death will enrich the land on which he dies because it will infuse it with that same Englishness. This is characterized as a kind of richness, the diacope (also polyptoton) in line 4 between "rich" and "richer" highlighting England—and Englishness—as a kind of rare and precious material.
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Lines 5-8
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.
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Lines 9-11
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; -
Lines 12-14
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
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“The Soldier” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
"The Soldier" is full of alliteration. Overall, this is a very pretty-sounding and lyrical poem. The speaker presents a vision of war and death that is completely relieved by the bond he feels with his home country. The sound of the poem is suitably pleasant. That is, the sounds ring together in a way that is pleasing on the ear, avoiding any harshness that might suggest anything negative. The alliteration is an important part of this overall approach.
Appropriately enough, alliteration is first used from the very beginning. Across lines 1 to 3, the poem uses /th/ and /f/ sounds:
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England.These sounds don't really convey anything in particular other than contributing to the overall pleasantness described in the paragraph above. Additionally, although it's not strictly alliterative, the repeating letter "e" in the phrase "for ever England" chimes with this sentence's musicality. Additionally, the two /f/ sounds create a pair that contrasts with "ever England," setting up the opposition between the foreign land and the home nation.
Next, in line 4, "rich" alliterates with "richer" (this repetition is also an example of diacope and polyptoton). The line itself becomes rich in the /r/ sound, thus adding to the poem's abundance of musicality.
Lines 7 to 8 are full of /b/ alliteration. These lines paint a pastoral and idyllic picture of England which ultimately makes the country sound like Eden. The repeated sounds have a pretty and luxurious effect:
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.Line 12 uses /h/ and /s/ alliteration:
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day
The /h/ sounds give the line an impassioned, breathless quality, while the /s/ contributes to the overall prettiness of the poem. The /l/ alliteration of the following line—"laughter, learnt of friends"—works in a similar way.
So, throughout the poem, alliteration adds to the lyrical richness of the poem, which captures the speaker's intense, patriotic love for England.
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Anaphora
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Caesura
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Consonance
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Enjambment
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Metaphor
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Personification
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Asyndeton
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Diacope
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“The Soldier” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Bore
- Made Aware
- Roam
- Blest
- Shed
Bore-
This means "gave birth to," and forms part of the poem's depiction of England as a motherly and godlike figure.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Soldier”
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Form
"The Soldier" borrows from both the Shakespearean and the Petrarchan versions of the sonnet. The first stanza follows the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet, while the second follows that of a Petrarchan sonnet. Structurally, however, the poem more closely adheres to the Petrarchan sonnet overall, which is divided into an octave (an eight-line stanza) and a sestet (a six-line stanza).
The poem makes the argument that, when the speaker dies, he should be remembered in a particular way: without sadness and with a deep sense of patriotism. The poem introduces this concept in the first three and a half lines, and then sets about providing evidence to justify it. It provides a rich series of examples to illustrate why death for England is glorious rather than sad.
One of the signature elements of a sonnet is a turn, or volta. This is when the poem shifts the direction of its argument, and in Petrarchan sonnets it usually happens at the start of the sestet. The volta in this poem is subtle. After all, the speaker's passion for England rises continuously throughout the poem. But there is a difference between the two stanzas: the first is based in physical reality, while the second is about the speaker's soul and the afterlife. However, the poem ends pretty much as it has been throughout—with an appeal to the heavenliness of England.
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Meter
"The Soldier" is written in formal, metrical verse. As is typical of sonnets in the English language, Brooke employs iambic pentameter—lines of five feet with an unstressed-stressed, da DUM, syllable pattern—throughout the poem. The first line offers up a typical example of this pattern:
If I | should die, | think on- | ly this | of me:
The steady sound of the iambs matches the formal, high-flown rhetoric that the speaker uses throughout. That said, there are a couple of notable variations. Line 4 can be read as iambic pentameter too, but could also be read like this:
In that | rich earth | a rich- | er dust | concealed;
The two adjacent stresses of "rich earth" (a type of foot called a spondee) sound like a kind of purification or increase in strength—which is what the speaker claims his body will cause in the soil wherever he dies.
Line 5 is metrically interesting too. Again, it depends on how it is read—it can be scanned as iambic pentameter or can interpreted as more stress-heavy:
A dust | whom Eng- | land bore, | shaped, made | aware,
This creates a heavy emphasis on the phrase's verbs, in turn portraying England as an active and nurturing influence on the soldier.
Finally, it's worth noting that the poem doesn't end on a stressed syllable, which is what would normally happen in a line of iambic pentameter. Instead, it ends with a gentle unstressed syllable, which emphasizes the "gentleness" of England and the sense in which the speaker believes his sacrificial death will grant him "peace":
In hearts | at peace, | under | an Eng- | lish heaven.
This is an example of a feminine ending, and it's also discussed in the rhyme section of this guide.
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Rhyme Scheme
"The Soldier" has a regular rhyme scheme that borrows from two different sonnet traditions, using a Shakespearean rhyme scheme in the octave (the first eight lines) and a Petrarchan rhyme scheme in the sestet (the final six).
The octave is rhymed:
ABABCDCD
This is a Shakespearean rhyme scheme (Shakespeare rhymes all his sonnets in this manner). The rhymes all sound loud and clear, and this neatness is part of the poem's generally formal and stately-sounding rhetoric. The poem is an idealized poem—it doesn't discuss the grim realities of warfare—and accordingly the rhymes represent a kind of idyllic perfection too.
The sestet is rhymed:
ABCABC
(Note that this stanza uses different rhymes from the first stanza). This is the rhyme scheme Petrarch uses in his sonnets. The most significant aspect here is the way that the poem ends on a particularly soft-sounding rhyme: "given" and "heaven." This is a feminine rhyme, meaning the word features a rhymed stressed syllable followed by a rhymed unstressed syllable: "given" and "heaven." This rhyme has a "gentleness" to it (which is also one of the end-words), representing the speaker's idea of England as a kind of heavenly paradise free from evil.
This final rhyme is also a subtle example of slant rhyme. Yet the two sounds are so similar that the rhyme comes off more as an elegant pairing than a jarring moment of dissonance. And because the rhyme between "given" and "heaven" is a fairly complex one, it suggests the deliberateness with which the speaker chooses the poem's final word.
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“The Soldier” Speaker
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The speaker in this poem is, of course, the "soldier" of the title. The reader learns nothing specific about this soldier's circumstances, and that's because this soldier is a kind of idealized figure who represents an equally idealized way of considering nationhood and patriotism.
The speaker feels himself—in every fiber of his being—to be an Englishman. He considers himself a son of England—and England is personified as a kind of nurturing mother/Mother Nature figure throughout. The speaker thus buys into a traditionally patriotic view of England, one especially tied to the pastoral beauty of its "green and pleasant land" (an oft-quoted description of England from the hymn "Jerusalem," with words from a poem by William Blake). This relationship is mostly explored in the first stanza, with its mentions of "dust," "flowers," "air," "rivers," and "suns."
The speaker is contented with the idea of his death, even embracing it. That's because he feels that dying is a noble sacrifice, part of his way of returning the love that his country has showed him. Indeed, the speaker sees England not just as a nurturing figure, but also as a kind of heaven itself, linking his spiritual nourishment—in this life and what follows—to his homeland. Accordingly, he sees his eternity as one spent in "an English heaven."
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“The Soldier” Setting
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The setting of this poem can fairly be described as the speaker's idea of England. He sees himself—in both body and mind—as an extension of England. If he is to die during the war, then a small part of England will enrich the soil wherever he dies. The rest of the first stanza discusses his beloved England, portraying it as a pastoral paradise—saying little of the rain that often falls there! Instead, England is like Eden: a kind of rich and beautiful garden full of flowers, fresh air, flowing rivers, and sunshine. This sets up the way that the second stanza explicitly links England to heaven itself ("hearts at peace, under an English heaven"). Indeed, heaven and England are practically interchangeable in the speaker's mind.
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Soldier”
Literary Context
Rupert Brooke was an English poet who lived from 1887 to 1915. He wrote poetry from an early age and attended Cambridge University. He joined the English Navy during the first year of the First World War (1914). However, he died the following year—not in warfare, as the patriotic tone of the poem might lead the reader to believe, but from poisoning brought on by an insect bite. His early poetic influences include W.B. Yeats, Charles Baudelaire, John Keats, and Oscar Wilde.
Brooke's poetry was immensely popular from its first publication, capturing the nervous excitement of a nation at war. Though Brooke did serve in the Navy, he never saw active conflict in the First World War, perhaps explaining why "The Soldier" is a romantic and idealized take on war and nationhood. These traits, too, help to explain Brooke's poems' initial popularity. Indeed, Winston Churchill—prime minister during the Second World War—described Brooke as "all that one could wish England's noblest sons to be." In other words, Brooke's poetry came to exemplify the patriotic soldier, willing to lay his life on the line for the greater good of his country.
Of course, this intensely patriotic and idealized look at the relationship between a soldier, his home country, and war tells the reader little of the horrific realities of the conflict in which millions were killed. To use a biblical analogy, Brooke's poem pictures a kind of Eden, one where horror and suffering don't exist.
Accordingly, it's worth comparing the poem with examples from the rich tradition of war poetry tied to both the First and Second World Wars. Wilfried Owen's poems, for example, are far more world-weary, intensely aware of what it's actually like to be involved in armed conflict (see "Dulce et Decorum Est" especially). Siegfried Sassoon also served in the same conflict, while Keith Douglas—a poet from World War Two—makes for interesting comparison too. Looking at more contemporary poems, readers could also go to Owen Sheers's "Mametz Wood" for a recent poem that tries to deal with the specifics of war.
There is another overlapping element of the poem's literary context that is important here too. This is about how the English relate to their own country, and particularly how English writers have idealized England. This poem seems to subscribe to the idea of England as an idyllic and holy "green and pleasant land" (a quote from William Blake's "Jerusalem"). The reader could be forgiven for thinking that England is full of sunshine and fresh air (a rumor that this guide writer can verify is not true!). Other famous depictions of England are at play too—the poem doesn't seem a million miles from John of Gaunt's deathbed speech in Shakespeare's Richard II:
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
[...]
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.This quote, like Brooke's poem, depicts England as a holy place and, essentially, a force for good in the world.
Historical Context
At the time, World War I was described with the term "the war to end all wars"—a phrase that of course turned out to be tragically inaccurate with the onset of World War II. Around 16 million people died directly in WWI, with many more perishing in the great flu outbreaks and genocides (for example, the Armenian Genocide) that followed.
The war began with the assassination of Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, who was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire (which ruled a large section of Central and Eastern Europe at the time). The assassin, Gavrilo Princip, wished to see an end to Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Previously arranged allegiances soon brought Germany and Russia into opposition, and before too long this conflict pulled the other countries of Europe into the war as well. In 1915, the Germans sank a British passenger ship called the Lusitania, killing many civilians. Among other reasons, this event drew the United States into the conflict as well.
As described in the poem, WWI was a horrendously destructive war. Life in the trenches of Europe was terrifying and deadly, and the poor conditions caused frequent sickness and disease. But Brooke didn't see any of that, dying in an unrelated incident early on into the conflict. Accordingly, this preserved him as a kind of mythic figure, a reputation also enabled by his handsome looks and his patriotic sensibilities.
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More “The Soldier” Resources
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External Resources
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Learn More About War Poetry — A series of podcast documentaries from the University of Oxford about various aspects of World War I poetry.
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First World War Poetry — More poems and an insightful essay about WWI from the Poetry Foundation.
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Bringing WWI to Life — In this clip, director Peter Jackson discusses his recent WWI film, They Shall Not Grow Old. Though technology, Jackson brings old war footage to vivid life, restoring a sense of the soldiers as actual people.
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A Reading of "The Soldier" — The poem read by David Barnes for Librivox.
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So Great a Lover: The Life of Rupert Brooke — A BBC documentary exploring the short life and work of Rupert Brooke.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Rupert Brooke
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