In the form of a sonnet, with 14 lines of iambic pentameter, divided into an octave and sestet, "The Soldier" was composed by Rupert Brook while he was fighting for England during the First World War.

In this sonnet, the poet speaks from the first person as an English soldier in the war, who anticipates encountering death, and asks the people of England not be sorrowful if he dies, which he does, but consider the spot on which his decaying body lies, "The corner of a foreign field" as a part of their country. When the body decays and it turns into "dust", that dust is "richer" than the ground it lays on, he says, because it comes from a body of an English man. A body that was born in England, was brought up, loved and educated in England. A body which used English air, was washed by English rivers and was blessed by the suns of England. With these words the poet implies that even the air and the water of England are different from anywhere else in the world, and that the "suns of home" are purer, more blessing than the suns of other countries (thought the English don’t have mush sun, it is always cloudy in England!). The sonnet points out that not only England is better than any other country around, but it is the same as heaven! Once the soldier dies and has "all evil shed away" from him, he returns with his "peace at heart" to a place where is as gentle as home, heaven.

The metaphors used to show the connections of England to the Soldier refer to the relationship of a mother and her child. Brook mentions that the soldier was "a dust whom England bore", just like a mother gives birth to her child. He was "shaped" by England, as a baby grows and shapes inside its mother's womb, and the soldier was "made aware", as a child is thought right and wrong by her mother.

The calm and happy tone of the sonnet helps with the understanding of the soldier's peaceful state. There is use of gentle images especially in line 13 and 14 where the poet mentions "gentleness, with peace at heart".

One of the greatest things one can criticize about "The Soldier" is that it lacks to describe the brutal ness of the war. This is in contrast with the work of other war poets including Wilfred Owen, who have tried to reflect the on goings of the war, in a negative tone. It has been said that the reason Brook's sonnet lacks war imagery is that he died before that war had reached its most gruesome stage and he only saw the war at a stage where the English still hoped they could win.

Whether you are an English person or not, you get affected by Blake's brilliant imagery and start imagining a beautiful place with "rivers" flowing and the "sun" shining and you wish that you were an English soldier about to die who would go straight to, not just heaven, an "English Heaven"!