MEMORIAL TO RUPERT BROOKE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 226, 18 June 1919, Page 5

MEMORIAL TO RUPERT BROOKE

—4 — SIR lAN HAMILTON ON THE POET'S CHARM A REGAL PRESENCE In Rugby School Chapel General' Sir lan Hamilton unveiled a portrait, medallion of Rupert Brooke, tho Old Rugbeian, who while serving iu the Royal Naval Division died at tho Isle of Leinuos, in the Aegean Sea, in April, 1915. The memorial is a profite portrait by Mr. Thomas Harvard from a photograph by Sherrll Scliell. Beneath appear thev-o lines from the most famous of Rupert Brooke's sonnets, "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 ho 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, AVashed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. Rupert Brooke's mother, Mrs. Parker Brooke, was present. Rupert Brooke was her elder son, and in tho same year sho lost her younger son, 2nd Lieutenant U\ A. C. Brooke, who was killed in action. In the following year Yale University awarded the Howland Memorial Prize of iSOO to Rupert Brooke for distinction in literature. In unveiling the - memorial Sir lan Hamilton said: "After four and a half years of war we have come together here p Rugby School Chapel. Tho time is a time of armistice —an armistico which may fling us back into Btruggles more monstrous than those that have gone before; or, conceivably, may yet lead us onward into the paths of peace. To us holding our breaths the issues seem to turn on' a hair's breadth, and, at a moment so supreme, nothing less than an overmastering sentiment could have had power to turn our thoughts from the present to the past. But that overmastering sentiment existed in our hearts, and would no longer be denied. There is .one whose loss we still find time and occasion to deplore. Whilst the hands of the clock never move but the wolf draws nearer to the door of, a

starving Continent; whilst murder and pestilence stalk hand in hand across tho great Russian steppes; whilst memorial shrines turn black with decaying wreaths and names lately famous struggle, and struggle in vain, in tho vortex of oblivion, we have come together to that school where Rupert Brooke lived and was best known, to tender our homage to his inenfSry. "Is it because lie was a hero? There were thousands. Is it because lie looked a hero? There -were a few. Is it because he had genius? There were others. But Rupert Brooke held all three gifts of the gotls in his hand; he held them in his hand, only to tiing them eagerly down, as if they were three common little dice. He cast the dice, but Death lia3 loaded them. Death cheated him at tho endcheated him of the joj of the contest. "Worthier hands than mine have awarded the palm amongst young poets to Rupert Brooke. A3 a soldier I can only say that wherever lie has • touched on war his pen has ennobled the theme, and here I know I speak truly for multitudes of my "comrades-in-arms; also, that his best poems possess a strange. shining quality! like lamps that havo been lit by the same radiant personality. "His personality! Let ine say this rf it: 1 have seen, famous men and brilliant figures in my day, but never one so th rilling so vital as that of our hero. Like a prince he would enter a room, like a price quite unconscious of his own royalty, and by that mere act put a spell upon everyone around him. In the twinkling of an eye gloom changed into light; dullness sent forth a certain sparkle in his presence. Thofe who had been touchcd by the magicians wand told others; the'news spread- that hero ,was someone who was distinguished by a nameless gift of attraction a head and shoulders above the crowd, and it is the memory-of this personal magnetism, more even-that the work his destiny permitted him to fulfil, that adds strength to tho roots of his ever-growing fame, "When,' on April 4, 1915, I inspected the Royal Naval Division at Port Said. I asked if I might see Eupert Brooke. He wa6 sick, it seemed; nothing serious—a touch of . the sun. So I went into his little tent, where ho was lying stretched out on the desert sand, looking extraordinarily handsome, a very knightly presence. Whilst speaking to him, my previous fears crystallised into a sudden clear and strong premonition that he was one of those whom the envious gods love too well. So I made my futile effort and begged him to come on my personal stall, whero I would see to it he should get serious work to do. I know the temper of- his spirit, and I promised him a fair share of danger. He replied just as Sir 'Philip Sydney would have replied. Hp would have loved to come, he said, but he loved better tho thought of going through with the first landing and. the first and worst fighting, shoulder to shoulder with his comrades'. He was right. There was nothing more to bp I eaid.

"And so on the afternoon of April 23, when the blnck ships lay thick on the wonderful blue of the bay «ud the troops in their transports steamed out slowly— cheering, wild with enthusiasm and joy— Mupert Brooko lay dying. That boy of genius who had it in In* magic pen to have brought home the significance of the Dardanelles to the people of the Empire —that boy lay.dying. ]Ie tad every gift —youth, 'charm, beauty, genius, nnd he gave them not that he might fall as the soldier hopes lie may fall, with the shout of victory. ringing iu his cars, but for nothing—so it may have seemed—ah, but not so really! ii'or here we have tho very - acme of tragedy, and by it will Rupert B.rooke beTemembered when.thousands of riper reputations and more fortunate seeming careers have faded for ever from the legends of romance. \ "We have kept'the faith!" we said: "Wo shall go down , with unreluctant tread . "Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . .

Proud we were, And laughed, thnt had 6uch brave, true things to say, ■1 then you suddenly cried, and turned away. After the ceremony, which was attended by many admirers of Rupert Brooke, there was a performance in the Temple Speech Room of an elegy for stringed orchestra, composed in memory of Rupert Brooke by his friend. Lieutenant ]?. S. Kelly, who was killed in the war;:and the school ' choir rendered Dr. Sydney Nicholson's setting of the 191-1 sonncis.