Page:Armistice Day.djvu/297

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
FOR THEE THEY DIED
275

THE SOLDIER

BY RUPERT BROOKE

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.


FOR THEE THEY DIED

BY JOHN DRINKWATER

For thee their pilgrim swords were tried,

Thy flaming word was in their scrips,