6. Rupert C. Brooke (1887–1915) was educated at Rugby and Cambridge, and for a time traveled in America. In 1914 he enlisted in the Royal Naval Division, took part in the fighting at Antwerp, and died of fever while on active service in the Dardanelles.
Brooke’s lamentably early death gave rise to a quite natural tendency to overpraise his poetry. The exaggerated estimates made at his death must be revised, and real justice done to his name. As a poet he is not consistently great, but he is always readable, often delightfully mannered and humorous (as in the poem called Heaven), and on at least one occasion, in the splendid sonnet called The Soldier, touches greatness. His sonnets are perhaps his best achievement. In this very difficult species of composition he has the requisite technical skill and delicate ear for rhythm, and he can catch the unmistakable surge and swell that mark the successful sonnet.
We quote from his piece called Heaven. In felicity of phrasing and aptness of humor it is of the best Metaphysical tradition.
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,