The Soldier by Rupert Brooke About the Poet: Rupert Brooke , (born Aug. 3, 1887, Rugby , Warwickshire, Eng.—died April 23, 1915, Skyros , Greece), English poet, a wellborn, gifted, handsome youth whose early death in World War I contributed to his idealized image in the interwar period. His best-known work is the sonnet sequence 1914 . BORN August 3, 1887 Rugby , England DIED April 23, 1915 (aged 27) Skyros , Greece At school at Rugby, where his father was a master, Brooke distinguished himself as a cricket and football (soccer) player as well as a scholar. At King’s College , Cambridge, where he matriculated in 1906, he was prominent in the Fabian (Socialist) Society and attracted innumerable friends. He studied in Germany and traveled in Italy, but his favourite pastime was rambling in the countryside around the village of Grantchester, which he celebrated in a charmi