d mind and
flashing face, to most of us he was totally unknown. Then came the War;
he took part in the unsuccessful Antwerp Expedition; and while in
training for the AEgean campaign he wrote the five sonnets entitled
"1914". I do not know exactly when they were written or where first
published. Their great popularity began when the Dean of St. Paul's
quoted from them in a sermon on Easter Day, 1915, alluding to them as
the finest expression of the English spirit that the War had called
forth. They came to New York in the shape of clippings from the London
_Times_. No one could read the matchless sonnet:

"If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England."

and not be thrilled to the quick. A country doctor in Ohio to whom I
sent a copy of the sonnet wrote "I cannot read it without tears." This
was poetry indeed; like the Scotchman and his house, we kent it by the
biggin o't. I suppose many another stranger must have done as I did:
wrote to Brooke to express gratitude for the perfect words. But he had
sailed for the Mediterranean long before. Presently came a letter from
London saying that he had died on the very day of my letter--April 23,
1915. He died on board the French hospital ship _Duguay-Trouin_, on
Shakespeare's birthday, in his 28th year. One gathers from the log of
the hospital-ship that the cause of his death was a malignant ulcer, due
to the sting of some venomous fly. He had been weakened by a previous
touch of sunstroke.

A description of the burial is given in "Memorials of Old Rugbeians Who
Fell in the Great War." It vividly recalls Stevenson's last journey to
the Samoan mountain top which Brooke himself had so recently visited.
The account was written by one of Brooke's comrades, who has since been
killed in action:

We found a most lovely place for his grave, about a mile up the
valley from the sea, an olive grove above a watercourse, dry now,
but torrential in winter. Two mountains flank it on either side, and
Mount Khokilas is at its head. We chose a place in the most lovely
grove I have ever seen, or imagined, a little glade of about a dozen
trees, carpeted with mauve-flowering sage. Over its head droops an
olive tree, and round it is a little space clear of all undergrowth.

About a quarter past nine the funeral party arrived and made their
way up the steep, narrow, and rocky path tha