Break of Day in the Trenches
BREAK OF DAY IN THE TRENCHES by ISAAC ROSENBERG
The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old Druid Time as ever.
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet's 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
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems, odd thing, you grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
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
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurl'd through still heavens?
What quaver---what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping,
But mine in my ear is safe---
Just a little white with the dust.
| Title |
Break of Day in the Trenches
|
|---|---|
| Author |
Rosenberg, Isaac (1890-1918)
|
| Item date |
1977
|
| Content | |
| Copyright |
The Isaac Rosenberg Literary Estate. Preliminaries and editorial matter omitted.
|
| Digital repository | |
| Repository name |
ProQuest
|
| Repository address URL | |
| First line |
The darkness crumbles away---
|
| Publication source |
The Collected Poems of Isaac Rosenberg
|
| Publication editor |
Bottomley, Gordon and Harding, Denys
|
| Publishers |
Chatto & Windus Ltd.
|
| Publication place |
London
|
Collection
Citation
“Break of Day in the Trenches,” by Rosenberg, Isaac (1890-1918). The Isaac Rosenberg Literary Estate. Preliminaries and editorial matter omitted. via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed April 27, 2024, http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/3266.
Permitted Use
This item is available for non-commercial educational use under the terms of the Jisc Model Licence. Further details available at: http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/permitteduse
