He seems to be anticipating the loss of life in that conflict - fished by angels to the sky to meet the God they blasphemed as they died.

THE BLIND GOD

Streaked with immortal blasphemies,
Betwixt His twin eternities
The shaper of mortal destinies
Sits in that limbo of dreamless sleep,
Some nothing that hath shadows deep.

The world is only a small pool
In the meadows of Eternity,
And men like fishes lying cool;
And the wise and the fool
In its depth like fishes lie.
When an angel drops a rod
And he draws you to the sky
Will you bear to meet your God
You have streaked with blasphemy?

Isaac Rosenberg

If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory, because the greatest of victories is the victory over oneself.

I have been asked to return to Rosenberg; so here is another of his poems.

GOD

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 an old shrunk 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!

Isaac Rosenberg

The mind is wavering and restless, difficult to guard and restrain. Let the wise man straighten his mind as as a maker of arrows makes his arrow straight.

A very descriptive poem, by Robert Graves, of life in the trenches.

IT'S A QUEER TIME

It's hard to know if you're alive or dead
When steel and fire go roaring through your head.
One moment you'll be crouching at your gun
Traversing, mowing heaps down half in fun:
The next, you choke and clutch at your right breast -
No time to think - leave all - and off you go...
To Treasure Island where the Spice winds blow,
To lovely groves of mango, quince and lime -
Breathe no good-bye, but ho, for the Red West!
It's a queer time.

You're charging madly at them yelling "Fag!"
When somehow something gives and your feet drag.
You fall and strike your head; yet feel no pain
And find ... you're digging tunnels through the hay
In the Big Barn, 'cause it's a rainy day.
Oh, springy hay, and lovely beams to climb!
You're back in the old sailor suit again.
It's a queer time.

Or you'll be dozing safe in your dug-out -
A great roar-the trench shakes and falls about
You're struggling, gasping, struggling, then... hullo!
Elsie comes tripping gaily down the trench,
Hanky to nose-that lyddite makes a stench -
Getting her pinafore all over grime.
Funny! because she died ten years ago!
It's a queer time.

The trouble is, things happen much too quick;
Up jump the Boches, rifles thump and click,
You stagger, and the whole scene fades away:
Even good Christians don't like passing straight
From Tipperary or their Hymn of Hate
To Alleluiah-chanting, and the chime
Of golden harps ... and ... I'm not well to-day...
It's a queer time.

Robert Graves

You would like to possess something that was permanent, stable, eternal, not liable to change, that would stand fast like unto the eternal.

But can you see such a possession? Neither can I.

BACK

They ask me where I've been,
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply
Who know it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea
And with my head and hands
Killed men in foreign lands...
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.

Wilfred Gibson

The self is not in Self

I am continuing with poems by Wilfred Wilson Gibson for the next couple of days.

Today a survivor reflects on those who have fallen in battle.

LAMENT

We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?

A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings -
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?

Wilfred Wilson Gibson (1916)

As the bee takes the essence of a flower and flies away without destroying its beauty and perfume, so let the sage wander in this life.

THE MESSAGES

"I cannot quite remember... There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench - and three
Whispered their last messages to me..."
Back from the trenches, more dead than alive,
Stone-deaf and dazed, and with a broken knee,
He hobbled slowly, muttering vacantly:

"I cannot quite remember... There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench, and three
Whispered their dying messages to me...

"Their friends are waiting, wondering how they thrive -
Waiting a word in silence patiently...
But what they said, or who their friends may be

"I cannot quite remember... There were five
Dropt dead beside me in the trench - and three
Whispered their dying messages to me..."

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

The British poet Wilfred Wilson Gibson (1878-1962) was a close friend of Rupert Brooke and a protégé of Edward Marsh.

After the outbreak of war Gibson, like Rosenberg and Gurney, served as a private in the infantry on the Western Front. It was therefore from the perspective of the ordinary soldier that he wrote his war poetry.

Just as a flower which seems beautiful but has no perfume, so are the fruitless words of the man who speaks them but does them not.

I have almost exhausted what I consider to be "The best of Isaac Rosenberg" , so I shall take a break and move on to other war poets - at least for the next few days.

I begin with this by Ivor Gurney.

TO HIS LOVE

He's gone, and all our plans
Are useless indeed.
We'll walk no more on Cotswold
Where the sheep feed
Quietly and take no heed.
His body that was so quick
Is not as you
Knew it, on Severn river
Under the blue
Driving our small boat through.
You would not know him now...
But still he died
Nobly, so cover him over
With violets of pride
Purple from Severn side.
Cover him, cover him soon!
And with thick-set
Masses of Memoried flowers -
Hide that red wet
Thing I must somehow forget.

Ivor Gurney

Born in Gloucester in 1890, Ivor Gurney attended the Royal College of Music, becoming a poet and musician, and making friends with Edward Thomas.

His war experiences are reflected in his poetry, much of which was published in two volumes, "Severn and Somme" (1917), and "War's Embers" (1919).

The wrong action seems sweet until the reaction comes and brings pain, and the bitter fruits of wrong deeds have then to be eaten by the fool.

In this poem Rosenberg invokes the traditional Jewish allegory of destruction to describe the carnage around him on the battlefield of World War 1.

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE BABYLONIAN HORDES

They left their Babylon bare
Of all its tall men,
Of all its proud horses;
They made for Lebanon.

And the shadowy sowers went
Before their spears to sow
The fruit whose taste is ash,
For Judah's soul to know

They who bowed to the Bull god,
Whose wings roofed Babylon,
In endless hosts darkened
The bright-heavened Lebanon.

They washed their grime in pools
Where laughing girls forgot
The wiles they used for Solomon.
Sweet laughter, remembered not!

Sweet laughter charred in the flame
That clutched the cloud and earth,
While Solomon's towers crashed between
To a gird of Babylon's mirth.

Isaac Rosenberg

A man is not a follower of righteousness because he talks much learned talk; but although a man be not learned, if he forgets not the right path, if his work is rightly done, then he is a follower of righteousness

Rupert Brooke's sonnet 'Peace' was inspired by his experience with the Royal Naval Division during the evacuation of Antwerp in October 1914.

Peace would not come for another four years.

PEACE

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

Rupert Brooke

For whatever a man thinks about continually, to that his mind becomes inclined by force of habit.

I am deserting Isaac Rosenberg today - but not really because this poem by the Second World War poet Keith Douglas, is a tribute to him.

Recovered, he returned to active duty to take part in the invasion of Normandy in 1944, in which he died.

DESERT FLOWERS

Living in a wide landscape are the flowers -
Rosenberg I only repeat what you were saying -
the shell and the hawk every hour
are slaying men and jerboas, slaying
the mind: but the body can fill
the hungry flowers and the dogs who cry words
at nights, the most hostile things of all.
But that is not new. Each time the night discards
draperies on the eyes and leaves the mind awake
I look each side of the door of sleep
for the little coin it will take
to buy the secret I shall not keep.
I see men as trees suffering
or confound the detail and the horizon.
Lay the coin on my tongue and I will sing
of what the others never set eyes on.

Keith Douglas

If a fool can see his own folly, he in this at least is wise; but the fool who thinks he is wise, he indeed is the real fool.

ON RECEIVING NEWS OF THE WAR
(written in Cape Town 1914, published 1922)

Snow is a strange white word;
No ice or frost
Have asked of bud or bird
For Winter's cost.
Yet ice and frost and snow
From earth to sky
This Summer land doth know,
No man knows why.

In all men's hearts it is.
Some spirit old
Hath turned with malign kiss
Our lives to mould.

Red fangs have torn His face.
God's blood is shed.
He mourns from His lone place
His children dead.

O! ancient crimson curse!
Corrode, consume.
Give back this universe
Its pristine bloom.

Isaac Rosenberg

The wise do not take delight in the senses and their objects, are not impressed by them, are not attched to them and in consequence their craving ceases.

'Marching' was written at the end of 1915/early 1916 but was not published until December 1916 when it appeared, along with 'Break of Day in the Trenches' in the US magazine 'Poetry'.

MARCHING
(As Seen From the Left File)

My eyes catch ruddy necks
Sturdily pressed back -
All a red brick moving glint.
Like flaming pendulums, hands
Swing across the khaki -
Mustard-coloured khaki -
To the automatic feet.
We husband the ancient glory
In these bared necks and hands.
Not broke is the forge of Mars;
But a subtler brain beats iron
To shoe the hoofs of death,
(Who paws dynamic air now).
Blind fingers loose an iron cloud
To rain immortal darkness
On strong eyes.

Isaac Rosenberg

Overcome anger by peacefulness: Overcome evil by good. Overcome the mean by generosity; and the man who lies by truth.

RETURNING, WE HEAR THE LARKS

Sombre the night is:
And though we have our lives, we know
What sinister threat lies 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 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

Hate is not conquerd by hate: hate is conquerd by love. This is a law eternal.

"Earth has waited for them,
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!"

DEAD MAN'S DUMP

The plunging limbers over the shattered track
Racketed with their rusty freight,
Stuck out like many crowns of thorns,
And the rusty stakes like sceptres old
To stay the flood of brutish men
Upon our brothers dear.

The wheels lurched over sprawled dead
But pained them not, though their bones crunched,
Their shut mouths made no moan.
They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
Man born of man, and born of woman,
And shells go crying over them
From night till night and now.

Earth has waited for them,
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!
In the strength of their strength
Suspended--stopped and held.

What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit?
Earth! have they gone into you!
Somewhere they must have gone,
And flung on your hard back
Is their soul's sack
Emptied of God-ancestralled essences.
Who hurled them out? Who hurled?

None saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass,
Or stood aside for the half used life to pass
Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
When the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth.

What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre,
Walk, our usual thoughts untouched,
Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed,
Immortal seeming ever?
Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us,
A fear may choke in our veins
And the startled blood may stop.

The air is loud with death,
The dark air spurts with fire,
The explosions ceaseless are.
Timelessly now, some minutes past,
Those dead strode time with vigorous life,
Till the shrapnel called `An end!'
But not to all. In bleeding pangs
Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home,
Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts.

Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel
Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love,
The impetuous storm of savage love.
Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke,
What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul
With lightning and thunder from your mined heart,
Which man's self dug, and his blind fingers loosed?

A man's brains splattered on
A stretcher-bearer's face;
His shook shoulders slipped their load,
But when they bent to look again
The drowning soul was sunk too deep
For human tenderness.

They left this dead with the older dead,
Stretched at the cross roads.

Burnt black by strange decay
Their sinister faces lie,
The lid over each eye,
The grass and coloured clay
More motion have than they,
Joined to the great sunk silences.

Here is one not long dead;
His dark hearing caught our far wheels,
And the choked soul stretched weak hands
To reach the living word the far wheels said,
The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light,
Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels
Swift for the end to break
Or the wheels to break,
Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight.

Will they come? Will they ever come?
Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules,
The quivering-bellied mules,
And the rushing wheels all mixed
With his tortured upturned sight.
So we crashed round the bend,
We heard his weak scream,
We heard his very last sound,
And our wheels grazed his dead face.

Isaac Rosenberg

If you have not already done so, please scroll down and read the comments of Geoff Akers, author of "Beating for Light: The Story Of Isaac Roesenberg"

Today, I am posting a longer poem from Isaac Rosenberg.

It will immediately follow (as a separate blog item) this feature article about "Beating For Light: The Story of Isaac Rosenberg"

AUTHOR GEOFF AKERS WRITES ABOUT THE GENESIS OF HIS BOOK

"When I first read Isaac Rosenberg's poetry, during my senior honours' year at Aberdeen University, I was immediately struck by the power and originality of the language.

Here was a poet, who more than any of the others I'd come across, expressed the true horrors of warfare. He wasn't writing about just any war, of course, but the first truly global conflict where destructive forces, hitherto unknown on the field of battle, were being unleashed to devastating effect. I believed then, and still believe, that "Dead Man's Dump" is the greatest and most profound war poem ever written.

In my honours' dissertation, I decided to compare and contrast the poetry of Rosenberg and Wilfred Owen with particular emphasis on "Dead Man's Dump" and "Strange Meeting" - the latter often lauded as Owen's most powerful anti-war poem.

While accepting both had great merit, the main thrust of my argument was that "Dead Man's Dump" was shorn of the sentiment which I felt, at times, detracted from Owen's work. Nowhere had I encountered imagery with such power to move me as: When the swift iron burning bee / Drained the wild honey of their youth….

and

A man's brains splattered on / A stretcher-bearer's face: / His shook shoulders slipped their load, / And when they bent to look again / The drowning soul was sunk too deep / For human tenderness.

In poems such as, "Break of Day in the Trenches" and "The Immortals" Rosenberg bravely attempted to articulate the underlying spiritual malaise at the heart of war. In the former, a queer sardonic rat … inwardly grins.. as it passes Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes, / less chanced than you for life, while in the latter, the lice rise up to torture the poet, For devils only die in fun. Such creatures, he believed, represented a petty evil alive in the world, prospering while the soldiers were reduced to the lowest possible state of being with, as he put it in a letter to a friend, no more free will than a tree.

Delving deeper into Rosenberg's extraordinary talent, I found that much of his poetry - even his pre-war work - had considerable merit. Unlike many of his fellow war poets, he wrote a great deal before 1914, and would, I am certain, had he lived, gone on to become an eminent and much respected writer. A number of prominent academics have rightly compared the mythic quality of his work with that of W.B. Yeats.

Although largely ignored during his lifetime, Rosenberg's poetry had come to the attention of such contemporary luminaries as T.S. Eliot, T.E. Hulme, Ezra Pound and Edward Marsh, all of whom commented on his talents as a writer.

I was further intrigued by his reputation as misfit, obsessed by a self-conceived role as victim - often railing at what he believed was a cosmic conspiracy to silence him. I discovered, however, that behind this rather superficial mask, lay a man who was, at heart, deeply courageous and utterly dedicated to his art. Despite suffering terrible health and racial abuse during his time in the army, he somehow managed to retain a strong grip on reality, continuing to record what he saw and experienced.

The fact that he suffered much greater privations on account of being an enlisted soldier was also a compelling factor in Rosenberg‘s difficult life. He could only dream about the privileges afforded the officer poets of the period. As a lowly private in His Majesty's Armed Forces, he had virtually no privacy or opportunity to write. Poems were often scribbled on the backs of envelopes while his mates were asleep or temporarily distracted.

Twenty years on, I read an article lamenting the fact that while the poetry of First World War officers such as Owen, Sassoon and others, had not only survived the long passage of time but grown in popularity, Private Rosenberg's work had slipped off the shelf into relative obscurity. The writer expressed the view that this was a great pity given its potentially enormous impact on the imagination of the modern reader.

I found myself agreeing with these sentiments and wondered how people could be provided with the opportunity to read some of the most inspiring war poetry ever written. After all, Rosenberg had posterity in mind when he struggled to express himself, realising well enough that his poems were unlikely to have much impact on those caught up in the conflict.

Out of these musings arose the idea of writing a novel to help bring his poetry to a wider audience - at the very least establishing his equality with the others. In Beating for Light I was determined to move beyond the biographical and get inside Rosenberg's mind. So the idea to fictionalise a part of his life was born.

At first, I only wanted to write about his war experiences but quickly realised that in order to properly convey a sense of his evolution as writer and artist, I would have to delve back, extensively researching every aspect of his life before and after 1915. In the end, everything in the book has its basis in fact - many of the fictionalised passages suggested and supported by his letters and other sources of information.

It is the reader, of course, who will have to judge whether or not I have succeeded in this ambitious project. But if the book encourages people to read Rosenberg's poetry, I will be more than satisfied.

Unfortunately, none of the mainstream publishers to whom I sent the manuscript felt able to offer me a contract. A novel written by an unknown first time writer about a somewhat obscure First World War Jewish poet, clearly did not inspire them enough to take a risk. Although often complimenting the quality of the writing, it was never quite right for their "lists".

On the way, I managed to avoid the vanity publisher honey traps, laid out to ensnare the unwary, eventually opting to self publish. While this can be an expensive way to get one's book into the public realm, the work that goes into it is fascinating and rewarding in itself.

My motivation to continue was based on the gut feeling that an audience exists who will enjoy and, who knows, perhaps gain from reading such a novel. Only time will tell.

"Beating For Light: The Story of Isaac Rosenberg", published by Juniper Books, is available via the website www.juniperbooks.co.uk for £9.95, and via Amazon.co.uk. ISBN 0-9547428-0-X.

Here, from the Amazon website are some comments about the book:

5.0 out of 5 stars A War Poet, 7 Jun 2006
By John Mason (Ripon, UK)

I found this book an absorbing read. I had not heard of Isaac Rosenberg before and I am grateful to Geoff Akers for his graphic fictionalised account of the brief life of this poet and artist.
The difficulties he had in the England of the beginning of the twentieth century, with its social and racial prejudices, are well described. The common soldier's view of the futility of the Great War is apparent in the dialogue and the horror of trench warfare comes through clearly. Yet from all of this came wonderful poetry which deserves to be much better known. This is a book I would recommend to others without reservation.

5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminating, 12 Feb 2006
By T. Carr (Edinburgh,UK)

An excellent read from start to finish. This moving story of First World War poet Isaac Rosenberg brings to life the appalling conditions of trench warfare. Akers achieves this through the use of scintillating dialogue, showing us how the poetic mind struggles to survive in such a hostile environment. Equally fascinating is the skillful depiction of life as the son of poor Jewish immigrants in London and the underlying awkwardness of the poet socially. A great read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful and Moving, 23 Jan 2006
By Katherine Taylor (Edinburgh, Scotland)

I really enjoyed this book. I knew nothing of Rosenberg or his poetry and it is a great intro to both. It is a blend of fact and fiction and each chapter is prefaced by the poet's own work. His short life is really vividly recreated and I liked the insight I got into what life was like for a struggling family in WW1. I also liked the detail about the poet's contacts with other poets of the period. The author made me empathise strongly with Rosenberg and the description of his death and other war scenes was very moving. Also, despite the fact that this is a story of someone who had a pretty miserable life, I was left with a real sense of wonder and optimism about the strength and tenacity of his creative spirit.

If you want to read more about Rosenberg, I thoroughly recommend this website:

http://www.arlindo-correia.com/120404.html

Today I am taking a break from the war poems of Isaac Rosenberg and returning to "Peace".

More from Rosenberg tomorrow.

KISS THE EARTH

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safe
When we feel safe in ourselves.

Thich Nhat Hanh

***********

IF a man speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows him as the wheel of the cart follows the beast that draws it.

Isaac Rosenberg continues yesterday's theme - of lice.

I suppose it proves that both sides had the same deprivation.

Nudes -- stark and glistening,
Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
And raging limbs
Whirl over the floor one fire.
For a shirt verminously busy
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.
And soon the shirt was aflare
Over the candle he'd lit while we lay.

Then we all sprang up and stript
To hunt the verminous brood.
Soon like a demons' pantomine
The place was raging.
See the silhouettes agape,
See the glibbering shadows
Mixed with the battled arms on the wall.
See gargantuan hooked fingers
Pluck in supreme flesh
To smutch supreme littleness.
See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling
Because some wizard vermin
Charmed from the quiet this revel
When our ears were half lulled
By the dark music
Blown from Sleep's trumpet.

Isaac Rosenberg

*********************
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind.

More from Isaac Rosenberg.

Don't go there yet.

THE IMMORTALS

I killed them, but they would not die.
Yea! all the day and all the night
For them I could not rest or sleep,
Nor guard from them nor hide in flight.

Then in my agony I turned
And made my hands red in their gore.
In vain - for faster than I slew
They rose more cruel than before.

I killed and killed with slaughter mad;
I killed till all my strength was gone.
And still they rose to torture me,
For Devils only die in fun.

I used to think the Devil hid
In women’s smiles and wine’s carouse.
I called him Satan, Balzebub.
But now I call him, dirty louse.

Isaac Rosenberg

Over the next few weeks I shall be posting war poems by Isaac Rosenberg.

It is possible that you have not heard of him and are unfamiliar with his work. He was certainly unknown to me until fairly recently.

The following brief note is taken from the preface of "The Selected Poems of Isaac Rosenberg" (Edited by Jean Moorcroft Wilson - published by Cecil Woolf, London £6.95).

Isaac Rosenberg, who was killed on the Somme on April the first 1918, was one of the finest poets of the First World War. T.S. Eliot recognised his genius and Edith Sitwell described him as among 'the greatest poets we have had'.

Before the war he had been an art student, adding another unusual dimension to his work. at the Slade, and his poetic vision is also that of a painter.

Let's move on to what is considered by some people to be the best poem of WW1

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.

Isaac Rosenberg

Nhat Hanh is an expatriate Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet and peace activist. He joined a Zen monastery at the age of 16, studied Buddhism as a novice, and was fully ordained as a monk in 1949.

One of the best known Buddhist teachers in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings and practices appeal to people from various religious, spiritual, and political backgrounds.

PEACE

They woke me this morning
to tell me my brother had been killed in battle.
Yet in the garden, uncurling moist petals,
a new rose blooms on the bush.
And I am alive, can still breathe the fragrance of roses and dung,
eat, pray, and sleep.
But when can I break my long silence?
When can I speak the unuttered words that are choking me?

Thich Nhat Hanh,
(From "The Cry of Vietnam")

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now."

Rupert Brooke is one of the best-known poets of the First World War.

He was also known for his boyish good looks, which prompted the Irish poet William Butler Yeats to describe him as "the handsomest young man in England".

THE SOLDIER

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke