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Rupert Brooke, who was a young scholar and poet, enlisted as soon as the Great War broke out. The first two lines of his poem “Peace” expressed his joy for being able to fight in the war.

Now, God he thanked, Who has matched us with His hour,

And caught our youth, and awakened us from sleeping.

Brooke served as an officer in the British Royal Navy and saw action during the defense of Antwerp, Belgium against the Germans where the British suffered a defeat. When he returned to England for redeployment in 1914, he wrote what would become his most famous sonnet titled, “The Soldier.”

In the spring of 1915, Brooke was on a ship headed to the Dardanelles. On April 19 when his boat was anchored off the Greek Island of Skyros, he developed a case of blood poisoning from an insect bite. He died on April 23 at the age of 27 while aboard the ship: never reaching his destination of Gallipoli.

His close friend, William Dennis Browne, wrote:

I sat with Rupert. At four o’clock he became weaker, and at 4:46 he died, with the sun shining all around his cabin, and the cool sea breeze blowing through the door and the shaded windows. No one could have wished for a quieter or calmer end than in that lovely bay, shielded by the mountains fragrant with sage and thyme.

Brooke was buried at 11:00 p.m., in an olive garden on Skyros in the Aegean Sea. He died only two days before the Allies launched their land invasion. Browne was the killed only two months later at Gallipoli. (Brooke 2008)

Brooke had an idealistic view of war when he wrote those sonnets before leaving for the Dardanelles. The opening lines of “The Soldier” read:

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England.

At the beginning of the war (before he knew what the conflict would be like) Brooke revealed his feelings when he wrote the following to a friend: ”Come and die. It’ll be great fun.” (Walzer 1977)