The soldier (Brooke, set by A. Cripps, A. Foote, G. Gover, A. Gray, J. Ireland, C. Sumsion, M. Vermeulen) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


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.

First published in New Numbers, December 1914
Authorship

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

1914

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

Alfred Redgrave Cripps (1882-1950)

Two Sonnets

Arthur Foote (1853-1937)

Three Songs

Gerald Gover (1914-)

Alan Gray (1855-1935)

1914

John Ireland (1879-1962)

Two Songs

Corbett C. Sumsion

Matthijs Vermeulen (1888-1967)

Date added to the website: 2008-07-12.

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