Martinsell Hill on a warm afternoon in early OctoberBreathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said, 'Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun and earth remain, the birds still sing,
When we are old, are old ....' 'And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips,' said I
'Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!'
'We are the Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We kept the faith!' we said;
'We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!'..... Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
- And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.
Rupert Brooke (1887 - 1915)
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Rupert Brooke is known as a war poet though he did fact die in 1915 of blood poisoning from a small wound which, had it been treated, would not have killed him. He came from an academic family and was handsome, athletic and gifted thus later becoming symbolic as the 'golden haired, young apollo - fallen warrior.'
