Rupert Brooke
Submitted for your approval is Mr. Rupert Brooke, an English poet who died all too young, at the age of 27. He enlisted in the Royal Navy at the start of the First World War and died of sepsis while en route to Gallipoli in 1915.
Some of Brooke’s poetry was similar to that of English war poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfrid Owen, but much of his earlier work was more along the lines of Romantic poets like Keats. Today Brooke is not very well known but at the time he had a cult following. Winston Churchill was a great admirer of Brooke’s work, and after Brooke’s death he eulogized him thusly: “The voice has been swiftly stilled. Only the echoes and the memory remain; but they will linger.”
But my favorite observation about Brooke comes from one of our other favorite hot dead guys, William Butler Yeats, who described him as “the handsomest young man in England.”
Fear No Weebles 
Yikes!!! Hugh Grant will need to get in the back seat! Hottay!
I’m almost glad he died of sepsis because I don’t think anyone wanted to live or die through Gallipoli.
Good one!!!
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You know what, I thought the exact same thing, that maybe he was better off dying before Gallipoli because of how horrifying an experience that was.
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I love that you post hot dead guys! lol
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I do too! Thank you for visiting!
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Yay! Hot dead guy day! Mme Weebles — he, is, hot! I have to read up on Gallipoli now…
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He’s quite a looker, isn’t he… Lots of gorgeous WWI soldiers, lots of ugly war. Sucks.
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Mr. Yeats was very discerning!
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Discerning and HOT.
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Ooh, I agree with Maggie. Hot dead guy, Rupert is very Hugh Grant-ish. Gorgeous hair and that smoldering broody thing going on. I LOVE your history lessons — yours are way more interesting and fun than the ones I learned in school. Thank you, Dear M! :).
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He does sort of have a Hugh Grant thing going on, I didn’t notice until you ladies remarked on it.
If wish history were taught this way—so much more enjoyable with eye candy!
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He sure makes sepsis seem hot. This is the hottest dead guy yet.
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I literally laughed out loud when I read “He sure makes sepsis seem hot.” Thank for you that!
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Hot indeed! Share a poem or two?
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Here’s an excerpt from one of his war poems, called “The Soldier,” from a series called 1914:
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.
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Enforced reading in what you might call “my day.” The phrase “there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England” is known to most football supporters in England!
Cheers
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Quite a beautiful poem. May have to look up that 1914 series. And YES,
Mr. Yeats was HOT.
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I’ve never seen a picture of him before. He looks remarkable modern. Your dead guys/chicks series is good. Well, good for me, they might not be so happy about the actual dead bit.
Full marks for using “thusly” in a blog post!
Cheers
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And full marks to you for appreciating the use of the word “thusly.”
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Oh my god, this is awesome, I just laughed myself off the chair! Great, wonderful fun reading 🙂
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And plenty more hot dead guys where this came from!
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I think this is a marvelous idea for a series! No shortage of dead guys and no shortage of folks ready to look at them 🙂 Love it!
Anne
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No indeed–no shortage of hot dead guys and gals at all… in fact, there are probably more and more all the time. So I’m here to provide the all-important service of introducing everyone to them!
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