1914, and Other Poems

<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</SPAN></span></p> <div class="poem"><span class="i0 headstyle">V. THE SOLDIER</span></div> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">If I should die, think only this of me:<br/></span> <span class="i1">That there's some corner of a foreign field<br/></span> <span class="i0">That is for ever England. There shall be<br/></span> <span class="i1">In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;<br/></span> <span class="i0">A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,<br/></span> <span class="i1">Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,<br/></span> <span class="i0">A body of England's, breathing English air,<br/></span> <span class="i1">Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">And think, this heart, all evil shed away,<br/></span> <span class="i1">A pulse in the eternal mind, no less<br/></span> <span class="i2">Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;<br/></span> <span class="i0">Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;<br/></span> <span class="i1">And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,<br/></span> <span class="i2">In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.<br/></span></div> </div> <hr class="large" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />