The Soldier, Prosaic version (with apologies to Rupert Brooke)
There's a war on.
If I die in it, I want you to think the following
things:
-
I'll be buried in some foreign place.
-
Think of it as a better
place because I'm buried there;
-
it'll be better because I'm English.
- Don't be sad.
- In that grave, the soil will be more fertile, because my dust is
English
dust.
- My biochemistry contains traces of English soil;
- I once breathed
English
air;
- I perceived the odor of English flowers;
- I was exposed to English
sunshine.
- Imagine also that I'm not totally dead.
- My heart is exonerated of all crimes.
- This permits it to continue to beat.
- The heartbeat is pulsing because the
human mind is eternal.
- That beating sends back messages in time with
mental activity still alive in me.
- It sends you, my survivors, messages
full of remembered experiences of England.
- These memories are
- visual,
- auditory,
- fantastic,
- imaginary
- pleasant,
- comic,
- gentle,
- and peaceful.
I lie there, dead and not dead, in England and not in England.