In my Commonplace...

 The  Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
     That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever 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 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.


                                      --Rupert Brooke