Get Your Premium Membership

Break of Day in the Trenches

 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 you inwardly 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
Hurled through still heavens? 
What quaver -what heart aghast? 
Poppies whose roots are in men's veins 
Drop, and are ever dropping; 
But mine in my ear is safe,
Just a little white with the dust.

Poem by Isaac Rosenberg
Biography | Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes | Email Poem - Break of Day in the TrenchesEmail Poem | Create an image from this poem

Poems are below...



Summaries, Analysis, and Information on "Break of Day in the Trenches"

More Poems by Isaac Rosenberg


Book: Reflection on the Important Things