🪖 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.