The Dead
by Rupert Brooke
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be	5
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain,	10
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.
The Dead — Brooke titled two of his war sonnnets “The Dead,” numbers III and IV. This is number III.
Nobleness — The more common form of the word is nobility. Brooke may have chosen nobleness to keep the syllable count in the line consistent, though he could have done that easily in other ways, such as eliminating And at the start of the line. Alternatively, he may have decided that blunter, slightly rougher sound nobleness fit his meaning better than the French-derived -ity suffix.