New Britain herald., 1925-06-03
& m THE BOOK SHELF H K
PASTELS
 AND PORTRAITS

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 Ten years ago last February the British Mediterranean expsditionary force sailed from England for the distant and mighty-palisaded Oar. danelles, but one member of tho force never reached the fleets ob. jective. For 10 years ago last month April 23. 19i6) Rupert Brooke died in the Aegean and was buried where today he sleeps amid the peoples and wild thyme of scyros
 At the time Of his altogether too premature death, Brooke was the one brightest ray in Engiand's liter. ary constellation. He was tho fav. ored of the gods, apparently desig. mated as the proud successor to Keats Shelley, Tennyson and others of that islands golden procession of music-makers--for even at the ,i time of his death he had struck a 1lyric note of sufficient timbre 10 warrant his being placed on a pedes. tai every bit as prominent as those. and any of them, who had gone be- fore.
 He had already, and he was but 27 at his death, shown himself a master, more especially of the son. net, and was but one more of thai gallant gentry that this ailing and palsied old planet of ours can so i'll afford to lose. Seldom. seldom in- deed, has a star of such refulgence risen in the literary horizon---only 10 be all too swiftly and ruthlessly' torn from the Armament. A genius at 27, one can but wonder 10 what liar heights he might yet aspire, what far peaks he might yet bend down at hearts desire.
 It is not since that era jewelled by the magic presence of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley that 50 tragic an event has happened, 50 cruel saber has pierced the purple fabric of poesy. Keats died at tho extreme age of 25, and Shelley was drowned at 33, Shelley who was 50 magnificent in his tribute 10 the dead Keats, his contemporary genius. It is true that others have died as young, but mono have ever shown that promise of future attain ment or of present accomplishment 50 manifest in the work of Keats and Shelley, immortals both, to which names we add, and appropri ately. Rupert Brooke. .e
 Rupert Brooke was a soldier and & hero. And never was a' more characteristic poem written than his "The Soldier" It is ths very soul of patriotism and loyalty. a living monument of a great poet, q great lover, a great hero
 We reprint ''The Soldier"
 The Soldier
 (Rupert Brooke)
 If should die. think only this of ? me:
 That there's some corner Of A for eign field '4 That is for ever England. There
 shall be
 In that rich earth richer dust
 concealed; t..
 A dust whom England bore, shaped
 made aware, 6.
 Gave. once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
 AAtm hvaat hinp Pnr-
 fish 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 Eng lish heaven.  He possessed the poets true sense r and taste for the finer things, the , altogether charming things of life, . and he thrilled in his futile groping ibeapnd reality, in his terrific efforts. and unsuccessful, to tear asunder the breakless gyyings of worldly in- v fuences. And through all his works there breathed an air of poignancy land despair that this life. so beau tiful in youth, must end, must come to nothing. Picture it in this. the I concluding lines Of "The Htll:" '"We shall go down with unreluct-
 ant tread Rose-crowned into the darknesa:"-
 Proud we were,
 And laughed. that shad such brave
 true things to say. y And then you suddenly cried. and
 turned away :, He was ever conscious of this ul- 0 timate decay of the beautiful, and of e the stark presence of lowering death and even more so when he went to war. Of a certainty. he must have = felt the same omniscience of i'm y pending doom that his rather we'll . known contemporary, Alan setger, felt when he penned his deathless t lines:
 h "I have a rendezvous with death 4 T shall not fail my rendezvous"