The Soldier

Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" was a British patriotic favorite during World War I and remained so long since. Focus in your response on what the speaker says and how he says it about war, glory, and England.

This poem is very nationalistic. The speaker is a young English soldier. He isn’t just proud of what he’s doing, he’d happy to be of service to his country. There is no fear of death, only pride that he had been able to fight for his country and bring his strong English blood to another land. Obviously he feels that if/when he is to die his love for his country will take him to an “English heaven.” He himself carries the country with him in heart and spirit so much so that “If I should die, think only this of me://That there’s some corner of a foreign field//That is forever England.”
Had Brooke survived his dysentery and blood poisoning, then I feel that yes, he would probably not viewed the war and his time within it as positively. Maybe he didn’t have the same experience as other poets because he had died when he did. This poem is positive and like a love poem for the soldiers or perhaps for the English fighting spirit in general. This is not a man jaded by death and war.

VERY nationalistic, and (LOL) you mention England in your response almost as often as the speaker mentions it in the poem!
Agreed on the rest.

I know! He as really drilling that home.

"Drilling" is a good way of describing the repeated references to England and things English.
Beside the naivety about war, this poem is an interesting contrast of the nationalistic thing to Sassoon's "Glory of Women."
Still, I think we all regret, by now, that Brooke didn't live long enough to contribute his takes on the horrors of war.