This is the memorial plaque to Rupert Brooke in Rugby School Chapel. The text of the poem beneath the bas-relief scupture is "The Soldier," the fifth of his 1914 war sonnets.
Rupert Brooke's war sonnets were written in the first flush of patriotism and enthusiasm as a generation unused to war rushed to defend king and country. Brooke's "War Sonnets" are not unusual; in fact, patriotic poetry, songs, editorials and the like far outweighed the hard, realistic poems written later in the war by Owen, Rosenberg and Sassoon. The poetry you can read from the authors below was, in fact, typical. Because we no longer read it and now find it jingoistic and simplistic does not mean that it was not extremely popular during the years of the Great War when readers sought ways to justify the loss of their loved ones and their great sacrifices at home and on the front. The newspapers regularly published poems like these by amateur writers.