{"id":28759,"date":"2015-04-14T06:30:18","date_gmt":"2015-04-13T18:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=28759"},"modified":"2015-04-11T17:27:51","modified_gmt":"2015-04-11T05:27:51","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-break-of-day-in-the-trenches-by-isaac-rosenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/04\/14\/the-tuesday-poem-break-of-day-in-the-trenches-by-isaac-rosenberg\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: &#8220;Break of Day in the Trenches&#8221;, by Isaac Rosenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Break of Day In The Trenches<\/h3>\n<p>The darkness crumbles away.<br \/>\nIt is the same old druid Time as ever,<br \/>\nOnly a live thing leaps my hand,<br \/>\nA queer sardonic rat,<br \/>\nAs I pull the parapet\u2019s poppy<br \/>\nTo stick behind my ear.<br \/>\nDroll rat, they would shoot you if they knew<br \/>\nYour cosmopolitan sympathies.<br \/>\nNow you have touched this English hand<br \/>\nYou will do the same to a German<br \/>\nSoon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure<br \/>\nTo cross the sleeping green between.<br \/>\nIt seems you inwardly grin as you pass<br \/>\nStrong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,<br \/>\nLess chanced than you for life,<br \/>\nBonds to the whims of murder,<br \/>\nSprawled in the bowels of the earth,<br \/>\nThe torn fields of France.<br \/>\nWhat do you see in our eyes<br \/>\nAt the shrieking iron and flame<br \/>\nHurled through still heavens?<br \/>\nWhat quaver \u2014 what heart aghast?<br \/>\nPoppies whose roots are in man\u2019s veins<br \/>\nDrop, and are ever dropping;<br \/>\nBut mine in my ear is safe \u2014<br \/>\nJust a little white with the dust.<\/p>\n<div>by Isaac Rosenberg, 1890 &#8211; 1918<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/div>\n<div>&#8212;<\/div>\n<div>With this April marking the centenary of ANZAC participation in the invasion of Gallipoli in World War One, I am featuring poetry on the theme of war and its consequences throughout the month.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em>Break of Day in the Trenches<\/em> is considerably different in tone from <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2015\/04\/07\/the-tuesday-poem-an-anzac-poem-by-jessie-pope-1868-1941\/\" target=\"_blank\">last week&#8217;s poem by Jessie Pope<\/a>. The latter is still in the &#8216;dulce et decorum est pro patria mori&#8217; (roughly: it is fine and good to die for your country) or &#8220;heroic&#8221; tradition of war poetry, while Rosenberg&#8217;s marks the shift to brutal realism that WW1 introduced.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The Poetry Foundation records the following about Isaac Rosenberg:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em>&#8220;Rosenberg fought in World War I between 1915 and 1918, dying in the battle of Arras on April 1. During this period, his work reached a kind of early maturity; in this period he found a truly distinctive voice &#8230; Many critics see Rosenberg strictly through his war poems. Others, however, insist that the war was only a subject for Rosenberg, or perhaps a challenge for which he was eminently suited&#8230;&#8221;<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I shall leave his poem to speak for itself and you, as reader, to make up your own mind.<br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/div>\n<div>&#8212;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/08\/30\/tuesday-poem-enchantress-of-numbers-by-helen-rickerby\/tuespoem\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7519\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7519\" src=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/TuesPoem.jpg\" alt=\"TuesPoem\" width=\"120\" height=\"107\" \/><\/a>To read the featured poem on the <strong>Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click <a href=\"http:\/\/tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com\/\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019s poppy To stick behind my ear. Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew Your cosmopolitan sympathies. Now you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28759"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28762,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28759\/revisions\/28762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}