Following his death, Rupert C Brooke, who was already famous, became a symbol in England of the tragic loss of talented youth during the war.


and now I know, an ANZAC tragedy

High on an olive grove
overlooking Aegean blue
rests a punctuated thought
a life caught, media caesura
a breath | paused |eternally

Hover above a whistle
memory's wind, it blows
sunburnt reminiscence
where the gods sequestered
Muses interment softly glow

Why the folly, in this--
sending a poet to war
Before charging the shore
struck a fatal kiss in Gaul
felled by a bullet of fate.

How does one farewell
a flame thus whisked away
or have the deities misruled
a more gallant death for him
on the shores of Gallipoli

Perhaps it is as it should be
your life as brief as poetry
on breeze kissed Skyros bosom
under shady windows and
fragrance of sage and thyme






---------------------------------------------------------------✒
Rupert Brooke returned to England at the outbreak of World War I and enlisted in the Royal Naval Division. His most famous work, the sonnet sequence 1914 and Other Poems, appeared in 1915. On April 23, 1915, after taking part in the Antwerp Expedition, he died of blood poisoning from a mosquito bite while en route to Gallipoli with the Navy. He was buried on the island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea.

Following his death, Rupert C Brooke, who was already famous, became a symbol in England of the tragic loss of talented youth during the war.




Poetry by arquious The PoetBay support member heart!
Read 629 times
Written on 2015-04-22 at 03:50

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arquious The PoetBay support member heart!
That's what makes it all the more meaningful, you can take any individual tragedy and bring it back to the overarching theme of the whole campaign. Our personal and communal experiences are both valid and significant.
2015-04-23


Jamsbo Rockda The PoetBay support member heart!
Yes his plight was so sad. But so was the whole Gallipoli campaign. Lest we forget.
2015-04-23



It is truly inspired and beautiful:)
2015-04-22


josephus The PoetBay support member heart!
This poem is... Simply... brilliant. I'm at a loss to describe it further but it will reside in me for a long long time.
2015-04-22