The Poems of Rupert Brooke

The poetry of Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) remains memorable for its charming lyrical quality and the way in which his sonnets perfectly recapture the mood of England at the start of World War I. This volume reprints his complete oeuvre, from the early lyric poems to those written shortly before his premature death: "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester," "Tiare Tahiti," "The Great Lover," "The Dead," "The Soldier," and many others.
Brooke enlisted in the Royal Navy at the outbreak of the war in 1914 and entered the literary scene early the following year, when two of his sonnets ("The Dead" and "The Soldier") appeared in London's Times Literary Supplement.The 27-year-old poet died shortly afterward aboard a ship bound for Gallipoli.  His 1914 and Other Poems was published immediately afterward to wide acclaim. Brooke remains among Britain's best-loved cultural figures, and his works evoke the tranquility of prewar life and the ideals of heroic self-sacrifice.

A member of the generation of British poets who achieved fame during World War I, Rupert Brooke (1887–1915) burst on the literary scene when two of his war sonnets ("The Dead" and "The Soldier") were published in London's Times Literary Supplement on March 11, 1915. Less than two months later his 1914 and Other Poems was published and went through 24 impressions by June, 1918. After being inducted into the British Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, Brooke sailed on a Navy ship in February, 1915, heading toward the fighting at Gallipoli in Turkey. He died shortly thereafter, at age 27, on a French hospital ship moored off Skyros in the Aegean Sea from sepsis derived from an infected mosquito bite. Brooke was buried in an olive grove on Skyros.

Poems: 1905–1911

1905–1908
Second Best
Day That I Have Loved
Sleeping Out: Full Moon
In Examination
Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening
Wagner
The Vision of the Archangels 
Seaside 
On the Death of Smet-Smet 
The Song of the Pilgrims 
The Song of the Beasts 
Failure 
Ante Aram 
Dawn 
The Call 
The Wayfarers 
The Beginning 

Experiments
Choriambics—I 
Choriambics—II 
Desertion 

1908–1911
Sonnet: “Oh! Death Will Find Me” 
Sonnet: “I Said I Splendidly Loved You” 
Success 
Dust 
Kindliness 
Mummia 
The Fish 
Thoughts on the Shape of the Human Body 
Flight 
The Hill 
The One before the Last 
The Jolly Company 
The Life Beyond 
Lines Written in the Belief That the Ancient Roman Festival of the Dead Was Called Ambarvalia 
Dead Men’s Love 
Town and Country
Paralysis 
Menelaus and Helen 
Lust 
Jealousy 
Blue Evening 
The Charm 
Finding 
Song 
The Voice 
Dining-Room Tea 
The Goddess in the Wood
A Channel Passage
Victory
Day and Night

Poems: 1911–1914

Grantchester
The Old Vicarage, Grantchester 

Other Poems
Beauty and Beauty 
Song 
Mary and Gabriel 
Unfortunate 
The Busy Heart 
Love 
The Chilterns 
Home 
The Night Journey 
The Way That Lovers Use 
The Funeral of Youth 

The South Seas
Mutability 
Clouds 
Sonnet (Suggested by some of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research) 
A Memory 
One Day
Waikiki
Hauntings 
He Wonders Whether to Praise or to Blame Her 
Doubts 
There’s Wisdom in Women 
Fafaïa 
Heaven 
The Great Lover
Retrospect
Tiare Tahiti

1914
The Treasure
I. Peace
II. Safety 
III. The Dead 
IV. The Dead 
V. The Soldier 

Appendix

“I Strayed about the Deck, an Hour, To-Night” 
The Dance 
Song 
“Sometimes Even Now I May” 
Sonnet: In Time of Revolt 
A Letter to a Live Poet 
Fragment on Painters 
The True Beatitude
Sonnet Reversed 
It’s Not Going to Happen Again 
The Little Dog’s Day