“If I should die”, DYK Fact #555

[JaneFairfax]

Did you know? Two famous poems begin with the same four words, “if I should die”.

One of them is the sonnet “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke.

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.

The other is a poem by Emily Dickinson!

If I should die,
And you should live,
And time should gurgle on,
And morn should beam,
And noon should burn,
As it has usual done;
If birds should build as early,
And bees as bustling go,—
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
’T is sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with daisies lie,
That commerce will continue,
And trades as briskly fly.
It makes the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene,
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!

[shygeorge]

I have just read about Brooke, Rupert [Chawner] (1887–1915) in the FAMOUS PEOPLE section of the Bloomsbury Concise Encyclopedia. Did you know? His war poems were very popular with the public for their idealized vision of the nobility of war.