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
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.

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,
Like a girl’s dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there,
Or her kisses where a serpent hides.

Isaac Rosenberg

Isaac Rosenberg

Isaac Rosenberg (25 November 1890 – 1 April 1918) was an English poet of the First World War. His Poems from the Trenches are recognised as some of the most outstanding written during the First World War. Read more…

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