Sunday WW1 Remembered...

War Poetry written in 1917 became rather more sceptical of the war 

Returning, We Hear the Larks

By Isaac Rosenberg

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 listening 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 was an English poet and writer. His WW1 Poems from the Trenches are considered to be some of the most outstanding poems of the war period. In 1916 he was sent with his battalion, The King's Own Lancaster Regiment to the Western Front.

He was killed on 1 April 1918.

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