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ISAAC ROSENBERG (1890-1918) |
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Born in Bristol, England on 25th November 1890 to Russian-Jewish parents, Isaac Rosenberg grew up in the East End of London and became an apprentice engraver until he went to the Slade School to study. An artist and one of the Georgian poets, he was in South Africa when the First World War broke out recuperating from illness, but despite poor health, in 1915 he enlisted as a private in the Army and served in the ranks on the Western Front from 1916 until he was killed in action on April 1st 1918. He was 27 years old.
Isaac Rosenberg, Charles Sorley and Wilfred Owen, were considered to be the three greatest Great War poets, and Rosenberg's poem, "Break of Day in The Trenches" is generally considered to be the greatest poem of the war.
(Source: PoemHunter.com)
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In his poem BREAK OF DAY IN THE TRENCHES, an English soldier, probably the poet himself, is having a 'conversation' with a rat. At that time of day everything is still peaceful at the Front.
The rat has no enemies, he is on a friendly footing with both parties. Later on in the poem it is suggested that the rat realizes he is more likely to survive the horrors of war than the men. Next the soldier wonders if the rat knows how we, human beings, react to the 'shrieking iron and flame // hurled through still heavens.' What he and the rat seem to have in common is a capacity for survival.
The last two lines emphasize that he and his poppy have so far come through, which is more than can be said of the soldiers 'sprawled in the bowels of the earth'.
The absence of rhyme, the free rhythm and the alternating long and short lines give the poem a conversational quality.
Throughout the poem Rosenberg speaks and speculates about his own situation, without apparently feeling great involvement with the dead around him.
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The darkness crumbles away ‑‑
It is the same old Druid Time as ever.
Only a live thing leaps at 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
(And God knows what antipathies).
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?
Poppies whose roots are in man's veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe,
Just a little white with the dust.
Vertaling:  De dag breekt aan in de loopgraven
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De dag breekt aan in de loopgraven
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Het donker kruimelt weg -
Het is weer dezelfde ouwe druïde de Tijd,
alleen springt er een levend ding over mijn hand -
een rare smalende rat -
als ik de klaproos van de borstwering pluk
om achter mijn oor te steken.
Gekke rat, ze zouden je neerschieten als ze wisten
van je kosmopolitische sympathieën
(en God mag weten welke antipathieën)
Nu je deze Engelse hand hebt aangeraakt
zul je gauw hetzelfde doen bij een Duitse -
ongetwijfeld, als je er zin in hebt
het slapende groen tussen ons over te steken.
Het lijkt of je innerlijk grijnst als je sterke
ogen, fraaie ledematen, hooghartige atleten passeert,
met minder kans op leven dan jij,
onderhevig aan de nukken van het moorden,
liggend in de ingewanden van de aarde,
de verscheurde velden van Frankrijk.
Wat zie je in onze ogen
bij het schreeuwend ijzer en het vuur
geslingerd door stille hemels?
Klaprozen die wortelen in mensenaderen
vallen en blijven vallen
maar de mijne in mijn oor is veilig,
alleen een beetje wit van het stof
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Engels
