1. The barbed wire protecting the front from 2. Buckinghamshire, in southern England, infantry attack. ISAAC ROSENBERG 1890-1918
Isaac Rosenberg was born in Bristol to a poor Jewish family that moved to London in 1897. There, at Stepney, he attended elementary schools until the age of fourteen, when he became apprenticed as an engraver in a firm of art publishers and attended evening classes at the Art School of Birkbeck College. His first ambition was to be a painter, and in 1911, when his apprenticeship was over, a group of three Jewish women provided the means for his studying at the Slade School of Art. His interest in writing poetry steadily developed, and with his sister's encouragement he circulated copies of his poems among members of London's literary set and gained a certain reputation, though neither his poetry nor his painting won him any material success. In 1912 he published Night and Day, the first of three pamphlets of poetry at his own expense. The other two were Youth (1915) and Moses, A Play (1916).
In 1915 Rosenberg enlisted in the army, and he was killed in action on April 1,
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ROSENBERG: LOUSE HUNTING / 1967
1918. After his death his reputation steadily grew as an unusually interesting and original poet, who, though he did not live to maturity, nevertheless broke new ground in imagery, rhythms, and the handling of dramatic effects. His poetry strangely amalgamates acerbic irony (the sardonic grin of a rat in 'Break of Day in the Trenches') with lush, resonant, even biblical diction and imagery ('shrieking iron and flame / Hurled through still heavens'). The fierce apprehension of the physical reality of war, the exclamatory directness of the language, and the vivid sense of involvement distinguish his poems. Perhaps Rosenberg's working-class background had something to do with this vividness: like Ivor Gurney and David Jones, he served in the ranks.
Break of Day in the Trenches
The darkness crumbles away. It is the same old druid1 Time as ever, Only a live thing leaps my hand, A queer sardonic rat,
5 As I pull the parapet's2 poppy To stick behind my ear. Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies. Now you have touched this English hand
10 You will do the same to a German Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure To cross the sleeping green between. It seems you inwardly grin as you pass Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
15 Less chanced than you for life, Bonds to the whims of murder, Sprawled in the bowels of the earth, The torn fields of France. What do you see in our eyes
20 At the shrieking iron and flame Hurled through still heavens? What quaver?what heart aghast? Poppies whose roots are in man's veins Drop, and are ever dropping;
25 But mine in my ear is safe? Just a little white with the dust.
June 1916 1922
Louse Hunting
Nudes?stark and glistening, Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces And raging limbs Whirl over the floor one fire,
s For a shirt verminously busy
1. Ancient Celtic priest. 2. Wall protecting a trench.
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1968 / VOICES FROM WORLD WAR 1
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice. And soon the shirt was aflare Over the candle he'd lit while we lay.
10 Then we all sprang up and stript To hunt the verminous brood. Soon like a demons' pantomime The place was raging. See the silhouettes agape, 15 See the gibbering shadows Mixed with the battled arms on the wall. See gargantuan hooked fingers Pluck in supreme flesh To smutch0 supreme littleness. blacken, besmirch 2 0 See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling1 Because some wizard vermin Charmed from the quiet this revel When our ears were half lulled By the dark music 25 Blown from Sleep's trumpet. 1917 1922
Returning, We Hear the Larks
Sombre the night is. And though we have our lives, we know What sinister threat lurks there.
Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know 5 This poison-blasted track opens on our camp? On a little safe sleep.
But hark! joy?joy?strange joy. Lo! heights of night ringing with unseen larks. Music showering on our upturned list'ning faces.
10 Death could drop from the dark As easily as song? But song only dropped, Like a blind man's dreams on the sand By dangerous tides,
15 Like a girl's dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there, Or her kisses where a serpent hides.
1917 1922
1. In wild Scottish dance.
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ROSENBERG: DEAD MAN'S DUMP / 1969
Dead Man's Dump
The plunging limbers' over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old
5 To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear.
