(To be sung to the tune of the Prelude to Act III of “Carmen”, by Bizet)
The boy who sang by Granta’s stream
Of spires and fenland, games and laughter in the morning
Taken by a wider dream
Out eastwards sees the golden sun of blazing dawning
Hears a voice singing proudly now of songs of war and duty
beauty
Youth and honour lie in Flanders field
And by the banks of Somme and Yser seek for fame
A sword to draw, a lance to wield
A shield to bear the man that dies to win a name
And hear him sing, Now may God be thanked who matched us with his hour
power
Loud rejoicing as the boat sails away
To sun-baked islands, seas that once were dark as wine
Where heroes fought a burning day
And deeds as brightly as the Hellene sun will shine
And so he goes, seeking Ilium’s walls and Hector’s martial story
for the
Boy who sang by Granta’s stream
In storm and glory
To the war
Is gone.
..........................................................................................
Notes:-
Rupert Brooke was the golden boy of English poetry in the years leading up to the First World War. His most frequently quoted poems are "Grantchester", about the villages around Cambridge, and a sonnet, "Now may God be thanked, who has matched us with his hour", expressing his excitement at the declaration of war in 1914. Brooke promptly volunteered for service, and in early 1915 was shipped out to the Mediterranean for the Gallipoli expedition. But he never got there; dying of a mosquito bite on the island of Sykros on April 23rd. He was 27 years old.
This poem is designed to be sung to Bizet's music, and the words are chosen with this in mind: for their sound as well as their meaning.
The imagery is deliberately archaic, because Brooke had no idea what the war would actually be like - but neither did anyone else! "Ilium" in verse three is Troy: as you stand on the ramparts of Troy you can see the main Turkish war memorial on Gallipoli,on the far side of the Dardanelles straits.
