God
GOD by ISAAC ROSENBERG
In his malodorous brain what slugs and mire,
Lanthorned in his oblique eyes, guttering burned!
His body lodged a rat where men nursed souls.
The world flashed grape-green eyes of a foiled cat
To him. On fragments of a skull of power,
On shy and maimed, on women wrung awry,
He lay, a bullying hulk, to crush them more.
But when one, fearless, turned and clawed like bronze,
Cringing was easy to blunt these stern paws,
And he would weigh the heavier on those after.
Who rests in God's mean flattery now? Your wealth
Is but his cunning to make death more hard.
Your iron sinews take more pain in breaking.
And he has made the market for your beauty
Too poor to buy, although you die to sell.
Only that he has never heard of sleep;
And when the cats come out the rats are sly.
Here we are safe till he slinks in at dawn.
But he has gnawed a fibre from strange roots,
And in the morning some pale wonder ceases.
Things are not strange and strange things are forgetful.
Ah! if the day were arid, somehow lost
Out of us, but it is as hair of us,
And only in the hush no wind stirs it.
And in the light vague trouble lifts and breathes,
And restlessness still shadows the lost ways.
The fingers shut on voices that pass through,
Where blind farewells are taken easily.
Ah! this miasma of a rotting God!
| Title |
God
|
|---|---|
| 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 |
In his malodorous brain what slugs and mirc,
|
| Publication source |
The Collected Poems of Isaac Rosenberg
|
| Publication editor |
Bottomley, Gordon and Harding, Denys
|
| Publishers |
Chatto & Windus Ltd.
|
| Publication place |
London
|
Collection
Citation
“God,” by Rosenberg, Isaac (1890-1918). The Isaac Rosenberg Literary Estate. Preliminaries and editorial matter omitted. via First World War Poetry Digital Archive, accessed May 19, 2024, http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/item/3272.
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
