Hey guys I am studying WW1 poetry in English, and we were given this very cool piece written by Rupert Brooke called The Soldier and I thought you might like to read it. It was used to get soldiers to sign up for the military and was in a way propaganda.
The Soldier
IF I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever 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 the 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.
Basically it means that where the soldiers die, they claim that soil for England and because they are English they make that soil richer. It personifies England to be a mother who has brought up the soldiers and it uses soft consonants to make it feel warm and calming. What do you think?